The spinout of Yamaguchi University and National Cancer Centre Japan has raised the cash from investors including Dai-ichi Life and Binex.
Noile-Immune Biotech, a Japan-based developer of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for solid tumours spun out of Yamaguchi University and National Cancer Centre Japan, has raised ¥2.38bn ($21.9m) in series C funding.
The round was backed by insurer Dai-ichi Life, pharmaceutical firm Binex, biotech firm Bigen and packaging plant operator Shibuya Kogyo, as well as Binex Holdings, Healthcare Innovation Investment and KD Bio Investment Fund.
Founded in 2015, Noile-Immune is working on cancer immunotherapies. Its lead programme, NIB-101, is aimed at a type of glycolipid – which maintain the stability of the cell membrane – called GM2 that is expressed on certain types of cancer.
It will use the series C capital to advance its NIB-101 into clinical trials this year.
Binex and Bigen previously backed a series B round of undisclosed size in March 2020, following a commitment also of undisclosed size from Yamaguchi University’s tech transfer office Yamaguchi Technology Licensing Organisation in November 2018.
Bigen had already participated in a May 2018 round of unspecified size.
Financial services firm Saikyo Bank, medical R&D firm Sosei Heptares subsidiary Sosei Corporate Venture Capital’s RMF1 fund and DCI Partners, brokerage Daiwa Securities Group’s venture capital subsidiary focusing on drug discovery and regenerative medicine developers in Japan and Taiwan, also took part in the May 2018 round.
Pharmaceutical firm Takeda supplied an undisclosed amount in September 2017.
– Additional reporting by Liwen-Edison Fu
