First-in-hu­man stud­ies in sight, SQZ's cell ther­a­py tech wins over a di­verse group of in­vestors in $72M round

Hav­ing steadi­ly built out the pre­clin­i­cal da­ta to ce­ment its cell ther­a­py plat­form and sort­ed out the tech­ni­cal­i­ties, SQZ Biotech has raised $72 mil­lion to make its first dri­ve to the clin­ic.

The Se­ries C marks the biggest round by far for Boston-based SQZ, which launched out of the labs of MIT’s Robert Langer and Klavs Jensen in 2014 with $1 mil­lion in seed fund­ing.

CEO Ar­mon Sharei tells me the over­sub­scribed round — bring­ing in new in­vestors in­clud­ing Il­lu­mi­na Ven­tures, In­vus, Vi­va Ven­tures Biotech Group, Everblue and Ori­ent Life — is a re­flec­tion of the com­pa­ny’s progress in val­i­dat­ing its ap­proach to en­gi­neer­ing cells for ther­a­peu­tic pur­pos­es. The team is now lin­ing up an IND in HPV+ tu­mor in­di­ca­tions for the end of the year, with the first clin­i­cal re­sults ex­pect­ed by next year. Tri­als in au­toim­mune dis­eases will fol­low.

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