Source: Lieyun Network
Recently, Immunofoco, an innovative cell therapy company, has completed a Pre-IPO round of financing worth nearly 200 million RMB. This round was led by Gaorong Ventures and Lyfe Capital, with participation from 0755-26165888 and Shenzhen Dingfengmingdao Asset Management Company. Yue Yin Datong (Tianjin) Asset Management Co., Ltd. continued to increase its investment as an existing shareholder. This marks the third round of financing for Immunofoco within less than a year, bringing the total amount raised to over 600 million RMB.
Immunofoco, which began operations in September 2020, is a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of immune cell therapies aimed at overcoming solid tumor treatments. The company was co-founded by scientists and industry experts, with core members having successfully advanced the first CAR-T drug's marketing application in China, bringing extensive experience in cell drug development and commercialization.
Immunofoco, starting from the pain points of solid tumor treatment and clinical benefits, has proposed the clinical strategy of "transforming solid tumors into hematological tumors" for the first time globally. Based on this, the Peri Cruiser® technology platform was developed. Additionally, other technology platforms such as SNR, T-Booster, Solid Guard, and In Vivo have been developed to enhance the safety of CAR-T products, combat tumor heterogeneity, and improve their expansion and tumor infiltration capabilities.
Since its establishment, Immunofoco has focused on the clinical needs in the field of solid tumor treatment. In response to the current pain points of CAR-T for solid tumors, it has built a cutting-edge next-generation CAR-T technology platform, including SNR, Peri Cruiser®, T-Booster, and SolidGuard. These platforms aim to address challenges such as antigen heterogeneity, off-target toxicity, T cell exhaustion, insufficient tumor tissue infiltration, and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, providing technical support for the continuous expansion of the solid tumor CAR-T product pipeline. Meanwhile, addressing the long production cycle and high cost of autologous CAR-T products, Immunofoco has developed the FOCO CAR production process, which effectively shortens the production cycle and significantly reduces production costs, enhancing the accessibility of autologous CAR-T products.
On the basis of the steady clinical development of its autologous CAR-T program, Immunofoco has proactively laid out the frontier technology of in vivo CAR-T, constructing the proprietary iMAGIC In Vivo CAR-T platform. This platform is based on a novel lentiviral vector that can specifically recognize and transduce in situ T cells, utilizing an artificially-intelligence-optimized off-targeting MxV glycoprotein (MxV-G) and incorporating a proprietary T-cell targeting module to achieve selective activation and transduction of T cells in vivo, while minimizing the risk of off-target gene delivery to non-T cells.