Ori Biotech Raises $100+ Million to Launch Novel Cell/Gene Therapy Manufacturing Platform

U.K. and New Jersey-based Ori Biotech has raised more than $100 million in an oversubscribed series B funding round to launch its innovative cell and gene therapy manufacturing platform.

Photo: Jason Foster, CEO of Ori Biotech

Novalis LifeSciences led the investment with Puhua Capital and Chimera Abu Dhabi coming in as new investors, along with existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Delin Ventures, Northpond Ventures and Octopus Ventures.

“We view Ori Biotech as the best-in-class solution to solve many of the significant challenges now facing CGT researchers and developers,” said Paul Meister, partner at Novalis LifeSciences, who will be joining the Ori Board of Directors.

Ori will use the funds to further expand key personnel across all functions, in order to rapidly transition through pre-commercialization to the launch of its innovative cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing platform. The company is also launching its Lightspeed Early Access Program (LEAP), allowing select partners to gain pre-launch access to the Ori platform in 2022.

The Ori platform is a proprietary, full stack manufacturing system that closes, automates, digitizes and standardizes CGT manufacturing. The company says it will enable therapy developers, contract manufacturers, and academic researchers to seamlessly transition from preclinical process discovery through clinical trials to commercial scale. The promise of the novel Ori platform is to fully automate CGT manufacturing to increase throughput and reproducibility, while improving quality and decreasing costs through the combination proprietary hardware, software, data, and analytical tools.

“One of the biggest obstacles to achieving this is cell and gene therapy manufacturing processes that are too expensive, too highly variable and too low throughput,” said Jason Foster, CEO of Ori Biotech. “Our team is focused on the urgent need to enhance the ability of cell and gene therapy developers, CDMOs, and Academic Medical Centers to deliver these therapies to as many patients as possible as quickly as possible.”

Author: Rare Daily Staff