Acepodia picks up strong hand to advance cell therapies in $100M series D

Acepodia is ready to ante up its bet on cell therapy after turning over a brand new $100 million series D financing that will support the biotech's pipeline of medicines for solid tumors and hematological cancers.

Digital Mobile Venture led the round with existing investors joining, according to a Tuesday press release. This brings Acepodia’s total fundraising haul to $259 million including a $109 million series C round in December 2021. Digital Mobile Venture—an early backer of video conferencing platform Zoom—previously backed the earlier round.

The biotech will use the funds to advance two lead T-cell therapies: an off-the-shelf gamma delta T-cell therapy called ACE1831 for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and ACE2016 for EGFR-expressing solid tumors.

Just two weeks ago, Acepodia announced the first patient has been dosed in a phase 1 trial for ACE1831, which will assess the maximum tolerated dose in up to 42 U.S. patients. ACE2016, meanwhile, is still in preclinical development.

Acepodia will also use the cash to improve on its antibody-cell conjugation technology platform based on click chemistry applied to live cells—which is based on the Nobel Prize-winning work of Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D.

Bertozzi was awarded her prize back in October. At the time, Acepodia noted that the company’s technology platform and intellectual properties were among a handful of companies that spun out of her University of California, Berkeley lab when CEO Sonny Hsiao, Ph.D., worked there.

Another biotech from the group is Lycia Therapeutics, which formed around Bertozzi's next-generation protein degradation approach. The company raised $70 million in a series B in September 2021