Months after achieving unicorn status, Orca steers into the fast lane with an RMAT designation for cell therapy candidate
A few months after its last big catch — a $192 million Series D and rare unicorn status — Orca Bio has reeled in the FDA’s regenerative medicine advanced therapy (RMAT) designation for its experimental cell therapy to treat blood stem cell transplant patients.
Orca, one of this year’s Endpoints 11 startups, was founded by three entrepreneurs who were intrigued by Irv Weissman’s cell purification work while studying at Stanford. Novartis — then Sandoz — had purchased Weissman’s spinout SyStemix in the ’90s, then scrapped it due to practical challenges. But Jeroen Bekaert, Ivan Dimov and Nate Fernhoff saw potential there.
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