Quell Therapeutics, a London, UK-based cell therapy company, raised $35m in Series A funding.
The round was led by Syncona (£34.0m) with participation from UCL Technology Fund (£1.0m).
Syncona will have a 69.3% stake in the business, with the first tranche of the Series A commitment of £8.3m paid in May 2019.
Syncona Chief Executive, Martin Murphy, has been appointed Chairman, whilst Elisa Petris and Freddie Dear, Syncona Partners, will be Director and Observer on the Board, respectively.
The company intends to use the funds to initiate the development of its first program. The Syncona team will work closely with Quell as it builds out its operations and management team.
Quell Therapeutics is developing engineered T regulatory (Treg) cell therapies leverging tregs, a subset of T cells that provide a regulatory function that harnesses their strong immune-suppressive capacity.
The company will seek to utilize Treg cells to advance therapies for the management and treatment of a range of conditions such as solid organ transplant rejection, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Quell has been founded by Syncona in partnership with six leading experts in the Treg field, cell engineering, solid organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases:
– Giovanni Lombardi, Professor of Human Transplant Immunology at Kings College London (KCL),
– Alberto Sanchez-Fueyo, Professor of Hepatology in the Institute of Liver Studies at KCL,
– Hans Stauss, Professor of Tumour Immunology and Director of the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation at University College London (UCL),
– Emma Morris, Professor of Clinical Cell & Gene Therapy and Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics Theme Director, National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre,
– Marc Martinez-Llordella, Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Liver Studies at KCL, and
– Elmar Jaeckel, Co-Leader Liver Transplant program MHH, Group Leader “Immune tolerance” in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at Hannover Medical School.
FinSMEs
21/05/2019