Talaris Therapeutics Raises $100M in Series A Financing

talarisTalaris Therapeutics, Inc., a Boston, MA and Louisville, KY-based biotechnology company developing cell therapies that have the potential to eliminate the burden of chronic immunosuppression for organ transplant recipients, closed a $100m Series A financing.

The round was led by Blackstone Life Sciences, with participation from Longitude Capital and Qiming Venture Partners USA.

The company intends to use the funds to advance its proprietary, one-time, allogeneic cell therapy, FCR001, into later-stage clinical development in multiple immune-related indications and expand its in-house cell processing capabilities to support development programs as well as early commercial launch needs.

Founded on technology discovered and developed by Dr. Suzanne Ildstad and led by new CEO Scott Requadt, Talaris Therapeutics is a late-clinical stage biotechnology company that is developing cell therapies with the potential to eliminate the burden of chronic immunosuppression for organ transplant recipients as well as induce durable remissions in patients with severe auto-immune and immune-mediated disorders. The company operates its own cell processing facility in Louisville, KY.

Mr. Requadt, Talaris’ new CEO, is an experienced biotech leader and life sciences investor with nearly 20 years of industry experience. Prior to joining Talaris, he was part of the investment team of Clarus Funds (now Blackstone Life Sciences) for 13 years, having most recently served as Managing Director. He remains a Venture Partner with Blackstone Life Sciences. Previously, he was Director, Business Development at Transform Pharmaceuticals until its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. He started his career as a mergers & acquisitions lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

The company also today announced the founding Board of Directors of Talaris, comprised of:
– Independent Chairman, Francois Nader, M.D., previously CEO of NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc.;
– Independent Director, Geoff MacKay, CEO of AVROBIO, Inc.;
– Scott Requadt, newly appointed CEO of Talaris;
– Nicholas Galakatos, Ph.D., Head of Blackstone Life Sciences;
– Sandip Agarwala, Managing Director of Longitude Capital;
– Mark McDade, Managing Partner at Qiming Venture Partners USA; and
– Suzanne Ildstad, M.D., Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Talaris.
Talaris has also added four key members to its senior leadership team:
– Chief Medical Officer Nancy Krieger, M.D., a transplant surgeon by training, has over 15 years of diverse global development experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
– SVP of Technical Operations Carlos Yuraszeck joins Talaris from Celgene, where he led Quality, Clinical Production and Supply teams within the company’s cell therapy division.
– VP of Human Resources Rick Purdy has more than 25 years of HR experience, most recently as Chief Human Resources Officer at ResCare Corporation.
– Head of New Product Planning Eric Gornstein joins Talaris from Radius Health, where he led commercial insights and analytics efforts.

FinSMEs

18/04/2019

Join the discussion