Cell therapy biotech Shinobi Therapeutics has pulled in $59 million in funding from a Japanese government grant. The pharma company also expanded its Series A round from last year.
The Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) granted the money to support Shinobi’s lead program, an iPS-T cell therapy targeting GPC3+ solid tumor cancers.
Shinobi also added two more investors, Yosemite and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and brought its total Series A funding to $119 million. The company originally raised $51 million last year in its Series A, with a goal of starting a Phase 1 trial in Japan and then expanding into the US for Phase 2 testing and later-stage trials.
“iPS cell therapies have the potential to transform patient care across a wide range of diseases while improving access in populations with high unmet needs, and much of the most exciting work in the field is happening in Japan,” Shinobi CEO Dan Kemp wrote in a statement.
“This AMED grant is a major statement of conviction by the Japanese agency and will help accelerate our lead oncology program toward the clinic,” he added.
Shinobi also inked several partnerships this spring. The first one was in April with Panasonic Holdings and Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application to develop a new and better manufacturing platform to produce iPS-T cell therapies. A prototype of the platform is expected in 2025.
Shinobi also teamed up with Anocca in May to develop allogeneic T cell therapies in solid tumors. As part of the agreement, Shinobi will use its iPS-T cell platform with T cell receptor-engineered T cell therapy candidates from Anocca in order to develop the new candidates in oncology.