RheumaGen – a cell and gene therapy company engineering a new class of therapeutics for major autoimmune diseases – announced the closing of a $15 million Series A financing co-led by SPRIM Global Investments and William Taylor Nominees.
The funding will support RheumaGen in completing a Phase I clinical trial of its lead program, RG0401, for treatment-resistant or refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
RheumaGen is creating a breakthrough class of cell and gene therapies designed to cure autoimmune diseases at their source. And the company is focused on editing the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), or “immune gene,” so that the immune system does not attack healthy cells. The company had been co-founded by Dr. Brian Freed, the company’s Chief Science Officer, who is a professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, and who founded CU Anschutz’s ClinImmune, one of the largest nonprofit clinical laboratories in the U.S.
KEY QUOTES:
“We founded RheumaGen to relieve the burden that individuals suffering from autoimmune diseases have carried for so long. We are not interested in incremental improvements. We seek cures and remission. This financing will enable us to advance our clinical programs and move closer to fulfilling RheumaGen’s vision to cure patients suffering from autoimmune diseases. We are grateful to our investors who share our vision and values, as we work to advance a pipeline of life-changing treatments for autoimmunity.”
– Richard Freed, CEO & Co-Founder of RheumaGen
“RheumaGen’s approach is exciting because it holds the potential for a single intervention to permanently alter the course of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis. This way of thinking could be very disruptive in the market, because it solves a critical unmet need, particularly for those treatment-resistant patients who are suffering the most.”
– Prof. George Schett, M.D., Vice President of Research and Head of the Department of Internal Medicine 3 at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, and member of RheumaGen’s Scientific Advisory Board
“We are thrilled to have co-led this financing alongside this strong group of experienced investors. We are confident in RheumaGen’s future growth, powered by their promising CGT technology and decades of immunology, histocompatibility and clinical expertise across the team, and we look forward to supporting the company as they advance their pipeline.”
– Tassos Konstantinou, Managing Director, Life Sciences, at SPRIM Global Investments
