Gaithersburg biopharmaceutical company Arcellx Inc. just raised a gargantuan $115 million.
The clinical-stage company, which develops cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, said Tuesday it has closed its Series C financing round to advance its pipeline — and, specifically, support development of a therapy in early-stage trials before starting a pivotal study next year. That candidate, which it is studying in multiple myeloma (cancer of the blood plasma cells), has earned fast track and orphan drug designations from the Food and Drug Administration to expedite its route to a potential approval.
The capital will also support the start of clinical trials to evaluate two other cell therapies in multiple myeloma and acute myelogenous leukemia (cancer of the blood and bone marrow) and its work to advance its solid tumor candidates toward the clinic, Chairman and CEO Rami Elghandour said in a statement.
Samsara BioCapital and CAM Capital co-led the round, according to Arcellx. New investors Adage Capital Management, Asymmetry Capital Management, CaaS Capital Management, Cambrian Biopharma, Sixty Degree Capital, Soleus Capital, Citadel-owned Surveyor Capital, Suvretta Capital Management and Terra Magnum Capital Partners participated in the raise, alongside existing investors New Enterprise Associates, Novo Holdings, SR One Ltd, Takeda Ventures, LG Technology Ventures and Clough Capital Partners.
“With support from this high caliber syndicate, Arcellx is poised to elevate the field of cell therapy by advancing our treatments for a range of cancers,” Elghandour said in a statement.
Elghandour assumed the top spot at Arcellx in January. David Hilbert, the company's founder and former CEO, is now chief technology officer, a new position for the company. Hilbert — an alum of Human Genome Sciences; Gaithersburg antibody company Cellective Therapeutics, which sold to MedImmune; D.C.-based Zyngenia; and the National Cancer Institute — led Arcellx through its $85 million Series B raise in October 2019 and a prior Series A round of an undisclosed amount. Data firm PitchBook pegs Arcellx’s total funding to date at $229 million.
Elghandour joined the Montgomery County biopharma after serving as president and CEO of West Coast med-tech company Nevro Corp. — which, under his leadership went public, raised $700 million in funding and reached nearly $400 million in revenue. He was previously an investor with Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. and a design engineer for Advanced Neuromodulation Systems. He earned his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and his bachelor’s in electrical and computer engineering from Rutgers University.
Arcellx focuses on CAR T-cell therapy, or immunotherapy that uses a special type of cell from the body’s immune system to fight cancer. The company uses its novel proprietary platform to put circulating T-cells under the control of proteins it can then program to recognize tumors and kill them faster.
The company — an Inno on Fire winner of 2020 — has built an executive team of industry veterans since its 2015 founding. Arcellx’s chief medical officer, Angela Shen, is an alum of Novartis, Exelixis, Johnson & Johnson and NKarta Therapeutics, among others. Han Lee, its chief financial officer, had worked in the ventures arm of AstraZeneca, helping manage the equity portfolio for both AstraZeneca and its Gaithersburg subsidiary, MedImmune.
