Versant Ventures, which incubated the cell-based immunotherapy developer based on Harvard and Stanford research, has backed a $160m round.
Century Therapeutics, a US-based immuno-oncology therapy developer based on research at Harvard and Stanford universities, completed a $160m series C round on Wednesday led by Casdin Capital.
Leaps by Bayer, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical and chemical group Bayer, also contributed to the round, as did financial services and investment group Fidelity Management and Research and sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority.
Venture capital firm Versant Ventures, Avidity Partners, Federated Hermes’ Kaufmann Funds, Logos Capital and Marshall Wace also participated, as did Octagon Capital, OrbiMed and RA Capital Management.
Incubated by Versant Ventures in 2018, Century is working on drugs using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, which is derived from adult human cells, to develop haematologic and solid tumour cancer treatments.
Lalo Flores, Century’s CEO, said: “With this new investor partnership, we are well-positioned to capitalise on the tremendous potential of our integrated iPSC, cell engineering and manufacturing capabilities to develop safer, more effective and more affordable next-generation allogeneic cancer therapies.”
The company has added Eli Casdin, founder and chief investment officer of Casdin Capital, to its board of directors in conjunction with the deal.
Century emerged from stealth in mid-2019 with a $250m round led by Leaps by Bayer and backed by Versant Ventures and Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics, a biotechnology subsidiary of optics and medical engineering conglomerate Fujifilm.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.