Cell Therapy Sector Sees Surge in Funding in January 2026, Signaling the Dawn of a Golden Era

　　【Pharmaceutical Network Industry Dynamics17 financing events, with a total financing amount of nearly 4 billion yuan. In January 2026, the biopharmaceutical innovation field (excluding monoclonal antibodies, small molecule inhibitors, etc.) showed strong development momentum and active financing. Notably, on January 9, nine cell therapy companies secured financing, becoming one of the popular niche tracks.
 

Qrigincell Therapeutics Announces Completion of $70 Million Series C1 Financing. As an innovative company in the field of cell therapy drugs, Qrigincell Therapeutics has been committed to developing CAR-T cell therapies with global clinical value and has generated proof-of-concept (POC) clinical data from multiple pipelines. Oricell, relying on its self-innovated Ori®Ab antibody screening and engineering platform, Ori®Armoring structure platform, and OnGo(Fast)CMC process expertise, is capturing the global CAR-T technology high ground with differentiated pipelines.
 

Among them, Qrigincell Therapeutics' Ori-C101 is an autologous CAR-T drug targeting GPC3 for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It has completed a Phase I investigator-initiated clinical study and a Phase I registrational clinical trial, and is about to launch a pivotal Phase II clinical trial. The currently available clinical data demonstrates excellent efficacy and safety, and has been presented multiple times at top international academic conferences such as ASCO. This product is expected to become the first approved CAR-T therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.
 

XsellSmart has completed its B/B+ round of financing led by 3SBio, with co-leading investments from Tailong Capital, Taikun Capital, and Asymchem Laboratories Group. The round also saw participation from joint investors including C&D Emerging Investment, Suzhou Angel Mother Fund, Qisheng Capital, Xinci Capital, and Tianhui Capital, along with continued additional investments from existing shareholders such as Frees Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, Lilly Asia Ventures, and Sequoia China. Additionally, the company secured a C1 round of financing led by Guoxin Fund, with Yuyao Industrial Investment as a follow-up investor, bringing the total amount raised to 400 million RMB.
 

Data shows that XsellSmart is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing clinical-grade, allogeneic, "off-the-shelf" iPSC-derived neural cell therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases. The company has completed the construction of key technology platforms, including iPS cell line reprogramming, iPSC gene editing, and the differentiation of iPSCs into various subtypes of cell types. It has also established animal models for evaluating the safety and efficacy of cellular drugs. Currently, XsellSmart’s iPS-derived cell innovative drug pipeline is in the preclinical research stage, with its core pipeline expected to enter clinical trials in 2023-2024.
 

Neowise Biotechnology, an innovative enterprise focusing on the development of TCR-T immunocyte therapeutic drugs for solid tumors, announced the completion of a Series B financing round exceeding 200 million yuan. This round of financing will mainly be used for clinical research of core pipelines and the advancement of multiple pre-clinical pipelines, accelerating the process of the company’s innovative drugs moving towards clinical trials, commercialization, and internationalization.
 

It is reported that Neowise Biotechnology has independently developed a high-throughput, high-sensitivity target antigen-natural TCR discovery platform. By combining computational and experimental validation through iterative feedback, the platform efficiently screens for natural high-affinity TCR sequences that specifically recognize tumor antigens, establishing a tumor target antigen-natural TCR pairing database (CAST®). The company currently has multiple pipelines that have advanced to the clinical trial stage. In clinical trials targeting various solid tumors, positive efficacy and good safety have been observed. Among them, NW-101C is a TCR-T cell therapy candidate drug independently developed by the company, targeting PRAME. It is a product in China that has entered the clinical stage for this target and has shown positive efficacy in various end-stage solid tumors. It is currently undergoing Phase I registrational clinical research, with indications including ovarian cancer, malignant melanoma, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, soft tissue sarcoma, and triple-negative breast cancer, among others.
 

Yingbai Rui Completes Nearly 100 Million Yuan in Series A+ Financing. This round of financing will mainly be used to advance the registration and clinical projects of innovative Class I biological products, including off-the-shelf natural killer cell therapies such as IBR854, IBR733, IBR822, and IBR900. It will also accelerate the market launch of a series of pioneering peripheral blood-derived, non-viral vector, non-gene-edited ready-to-use immune-tolerant NK/CAR-raNK® and tiNK® cell products. Data shows that Yingbai Rui is an innovative biopharmaceutical company at the clinical stage, supported by venture capital. The company primarily focuses on cutting-edge tumor immunotherapy and the development of innovative drugs for non-tumor immunotherapy targeting immune-related diseases, chronic diseases, and CNS-related diseases.
 

Experts in the industry indicate that cell-based drugs represent another revolution in human disease treatment following vaccines and antibiotics, fundamentally addressing the root cause of diseases—cellular aging and malfunction. The financing boom in the cell therapy sector in January 2026 reflects not only capital's strong recognition of the field's development potential but also signals that the industry is entering a golden phase of high-quality growth. With continuous technological breakthroughs by companies, steady progress in pipelines, and ongoing policy support, cell therapy will gradually enter clinical applications, benefiting patients and injecting new vitality into the high-quality development of the biopharmaceuticals industry.
 

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