Poseida Therapeutics. a company in which Dublin-listed life-sciences investment group Malin has a significant stake, has raised $142 million (€126 million) in funding.
The move comes as something of a surprise given the San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech company filed for a potential initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq exchange earlier this year.
Malin was among a number of companies to back Poseida in the Series C Round, which was led by a $75 million equity investment from Novartis Pharma. Other new backers included Aisling Capital Management, Pentwater Capital Management and Perceptive Advisors.
Poseida is a human therapeutics company using genome engineering technologies to develop new, life-saving treatments, including gene therapies for rare liver diseases and immuno-oncology therapeutics for several types of cancer.
Gene therapies
The company is currently developing gene therapies for liver diseases and autologous chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies.
Malin took a 33 per cent stake in Poseida in late 2015 in a deal valued at $30 million.
"We welcome the support and investment from Novartis, a leader in the cell and gene therapy field," said Eric Ostertag chief executive officer of Poseida.
“They are joined by an impressive group of new investors whose commitment enables us to accelerate the pursuit of our bold vision to create gene therapy product candidates that could result in single-treatment cures for numerous oncologic indications and orphan genetic diseases, with an initial focus on chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies.”
Malin raised €330 million in early 2015 from international investors in its debut on the Irish Stock Exchange in one of the largest life-science IPS ever to take place in Europe.
However, the company has seen its share price tumble since the flotation to such a degree that last year it decided to focus on four main assets, one of which is Poseida.
