Biotech Startup Century Therapeutics Lands $250 Million in Venture Financing
Corporate and venture-capital investors are investing $250 million into startup Century Therapeutics LLC to sponsor an endeavor to cure cancers with cellular therapy.
In fact, Philadelphia-based Century is creating off-the-shelf treatments that wouldn’t require the usual cell culture. Thus, the latest method entails extraction from patients and then reinjection after cell culture / preparation. Hence, it is an approach that could expedite treatment and reduce its cost.
Century applies induced pluripotent stem cells, to develop cancer therapy. Their method consists of reprogramming a mature cell into a format that enables it to differentiate into any type of cell.
In addition, this company signals these pluripotent cells to change into cancer-fighting immune cells. Besides, they will make changes to its cells to switch them into more effective therapies, according to Chief Executive Lalo Flores.
Moreover, the company hasn’t estimated when it will have treatments ready for clinical trials. However, they hope to design therapies for blood cancers and solid tumors, he said.
Indeed, Century raised plenty of funding to handle the complex engineering and other challenges involved in using living cells to treat a variety of tumors, said Carlo Rizzuto, a partner with Versant.
Furtheremore, the Versant partner said the following: “This is expensive work to do. This type of capital is a lot for an early-stage company [but] it’s needed in this particular case.”