University of Pennsylvania returned for a series B round that boosted its immunotherapy spinout's overall funding to $231m.

Tmunity Therapeutics, a US-based immunotherapy spinout from University of Pennsylvania, completed a $75m series B round featuring the university yesterday.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which included its own Cultural Leadership Fund in addition to antiviral drug producer Gilead Sciences and cell therapy services provider Be The Match BioTherapies, Westlake Village BioPartners and BrightEdge, American Cancer Society’s philanthropic impact vehicle.
Tmunity is working on immunotherapies for cancer, infectious and autoimmune diseases and will channel the funding into advancing a pipeline of 14 drug candidates towards clinical testing. It also plans to strengthen its cell therapy manufacturing resources and the vertically-integrated viral vector it has developed.
The company closed a $135m series A round in April 2018 featuring University of Pennsylvania, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and unnamed affiliates.
Gilead Sciences and Be The Match BioTherapies also participated in the series A round, as did Ping An Ventures and Lilly Asia Ventures, corporate venturing vehicles for insurance group Ping An and pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly
Tmunity had previously received $10m from University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Medicine and Lilly Asia Ventures in 2016, and said this week it has now raised $231m in funding altogether.
Usman Azam, MD, Tmunity’s president and CEO, said: “We are fortunate to be funded by impressive investors who share our commitment to patients and our vision to dramatically change the way cancer is treated.
“We see ourselves leading the innovation of the future of oncology treatment by uniting our foundational competences in cell therapy with expertise in building new constructs, translating them and getting them into the clinic.”
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.