Interius Raises $76 Million for Cell and Gene Therapy Platform

Preclinical gene therapy developer Interius BioTherapeutics said that it raised $76 million in a series A financing to advance its platform designed to enable highly specific, durable re-engineering of cells right where they live in the human body.

Photo: Lonnie Moulder, board chair and managing member of Tellus BioVentures

Cormorant Asset Management and Fairmount Funds led the round, which included participation from Bain Capital Life Sciences, Pfizer Ventures, RA Capital Management, Longwood Fund, Logos Capital, Osage University Partners, and Quan Capital. All existing investors participated, including lead founding investor Tellus BioVentures, the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine, Agent Capital, the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, Knollwood, and BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s impact investment fund.

Tomas Kiselak of Fairmount Funds and Ben Lund of Bain Capital Life Sciences will join the Interius Board of Directors.

Interius is initially focused on treating hematologic malignancies by leveraging its novel gene delivery platform to generate chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells directly in vivo. This therapeutic approach bypasses the need for ex vivo cell manipulations and the potentially toxic pre-conditioning chemotherapy required for standard CAR T cell treatments.

Interius is also developing applications beyond immuno-oncology that address diseases not amenable to current gene therapy modalities.

“The technology that Interius is advancing may dramatically change the way we think about in vivo gene delivery and lead to transformational therapies for patients,” Lonnie Moulder, board chair and managing member of Tellus BioVentures.