‘Impressive roster of participants’ brings $42m to PureTech affiliate

Vor Biopharma, founded by PureTech, has raised $42 million to support its hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)-based candidate through Series A financing round.

Vor Biopharma, co-founded by biopharma firm PureTech, will use the $42 million (€37 million) to advance its lead HSC-based preclinical candidate for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and to further build its pipeline to treat hematologic malignancies.

According to Jefferies equity analyst Peter Welford, the Series A financing round included an “impressive roster of participants,’ led by 5AM Ventures and RA Capital Management, with participation from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), Osage University Partners, Columbia University, and PureTech Health.

“This notable fundraising, backed by impressive third party investors, underscores the potential of Vor’s novel technology, in our view, potentially expanding use of immunotherapies for blood cancers,” Welford wrote in a note.

Vor’s engineered HSC platform aims to expand the reach of targeted immunotherapies to a broad range of patient populations and hematological malignancies. The firm says this improved tolerability could expand the use of modalities such as CAR-T, antibody-drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies, beyond B-cell malignancies.

“The need for new therapies for hematologic malignancies is dire. I am gratified that this discovery from my lab continues to advance towards the clinic. This new platform may enable more patients to benefit from the life-saving potential of targeted immunotherapies,” said Siddhartha Mukherjee, Vor co-founder and associate professor of Medicine at Columbia University.