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Fate Therapeutics raises $30 Million in series B financing
By siliconindia
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La Jolla, California: Stem cell company, Fate Therapeutics has closed a $30 million in series B venture financing round. This funding round is led by OVP Venture Partners and also a syndicate of corporate investors, including Astellas Venture Management, Genzyme Ventures and a third undisclosed corporate investor.
Also, the three co-leaders of the company's series A financing, ARCH Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and Venrock, participated in the latest round of financing. In conjunction with the funding, Carl Weissman, Managing Director at OVP Venture Partners, joined the company's Board of Directors. He said, "Fate Therapeutics has made rapid progress in advancing its pipeline of Stem Cell Modulators and in establishing the leading industrialized platform for induced pluripotent stem cell technology."
Scott Wolchko, Chief Financial Officer of Fate Therapeutics said, "With this Series B financing, we have raised the necessary funds to build on the pioneering research and foundational intellectual property of our scientific founders for human cell reprogramming and to enable the commercialization of our pharmaceutical grade iPSC technology." Dr. Pratik Multani is the Vice President of Clinical Development at Fate Therapeutics.
Founded in 2007, Fate Therapeutics is developing its lead Stem Cell Modulator (SCM), FT1050, to enhance hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) proliferation and homing. The small molecule is, currently, undergoing clinical testing at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital in adult patients with hematologic malignancies, such as leukemia and lymphoma, who have undergone non-myeloablative conditioning therapy and are in need of HSC support.
According to the company, its discovery engine utilizes the most advanced reprogramming technologies for generating cell types of interest to elucidate disease biology and identify targets for therapeutic intervention. Fate Therapeutics' protein-based reprogramming platform in combination with its novel small molecule conditions offers a highly efficient, non-viral, non-DNA based method to recapitulate human physiology for commercial scale drug discovery and therapeutic use. The company claims that it is in-licensed from the Scripps Research Institute and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research an intellectual property portfolio related to induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology.
