Not even one month af­ter Big Phar­ma took no­tice of Arti­va when Mer­ck signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion worth near­ly $2 bil­lion in mile­stones, the off-the-shelf NK cell biotech al­ready has its next big fundraise.

Arti­va re­turns from the ven­ture well Fri­day with a $120 mil­lion Se­ries B round, mon­ey they will use to get their first pro­gram in­to the clin­ic and to file INDs for an­oth­er two can­di­dates. The raise marks the lat­est de­vel­op­ment in a rapid­ly ex­pand­ing foot­print for Arti­va, which, in ad­di­tion to the Mer­ck deal last month, has now raised al­most $200 mil­lion since its Se­ries A last June.

So what’s been dri­ving this quick as­cent? CEO Fred Aslan told End­points News it’s been the com­pa­ny’s fo­cus on the NK cell man­u­fac­tur­ing process, rather than try­ing to get ef­fi­ca­cy da­ta on their pro­grams as quick­ly as they can. Arti­va ex­clu­sive­ly teamed with South Ko­re­an NK cell mak­er Green Cross Lab­Cell, giv­ing Aslan ac­cess to more than 10 years of re­search in the field.

As a re­sult of that part­ner­ship, Arti­va can not on­ly de­vel­op NK cell ther­a­pies, but pre­serve, freeze and ship them with­out the loss of qual­i­ty. That scal­a­bil­i­ty is what at­tract­ed Mer­ck and oth­er Big Phar­mas in the first place — the com­pa­nies had been tak­ing a wait-and-see ap­proach un­til al­lo­gene­ic NK cell de­vel­op­ment re­sem­bled the bi­o­log­ics pro­duc­tion they were fa­mil­iar with, Aslan said.

But now that Arti­va has man­u­fac­tur­ing locked and loaded, they are ready to “press on the gas” on their own pipeline, he told End­points.

The lead pro­gram is an NK cell ther­a­py meant to work in com­bi­na­tion with mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies, en­hanc­ing pa­tients’ re­sponse to the drugs. Specif­i­cal­ly, Arti­va is look­ing to boost the process known as an­ti­body-de­pen­dent cell cy­to­tox­i­c­i­ty, or AD­CC. A pa­tient’s own NK cells are re­spon­si­ble for AD­CC, which is the mech­a­nism that al­lows an­ti­bod­ies to work against can­cer anti­gens.

But in some lat­er-line set­tings, an in­di­vid­ual’s NK cells may not be strong enough to mount this re­sponse on their own, or they sim­ply may not have enough NK cells cir­cu­lat­ing in their bod­ies af­ter go­ing through many dif­fer­ent ther­a­pies. Once the mech­a­nism is re­stored, Arti­va hopes it can make the an­ti­bod­ies more ef­fec­tive.

Aslan said Arti­va is go­ing af­ter non-Hodgkin’s lym­phoma as its first tar­get pop­u­la­tion, and the com­pa­ny has al­ready be­gun screen­ing pa­tients for en­roll­ment. The com­pa­ny plans to pair the can­di­date, dubbed AB-101, with rit­ux­imab.

Re­searchers will be con­duct­ing a dose-es­ca­lat­ing Phase I study with about a dozen pa­tients at first. Aslan de­clined to say how long the tri­al is ex­pect­ed to run, but said ini­tial safe­ty da­ta could be avail­able as ear­ly as the end of this year.

Arti­va’s ul­ti­mate goal is to make ther­a­pies that have a sim­i­lar im­pact as CAR-Ts ac­ces­si­ble in a com­mu­ni­ty set­ting. Fri­day’s round is a val­i­dat­ing step to­ward that mis­sion, Aslan said, and one that could take the com­pa­ny to­ward an IPO.

But Aslan played coy when asked about tak­ing Arti­va pub­lic, say­ing on­ly that while he’s had thoughts about jump­ing to Nas­daq, “every com­pa­ny at our stage thinks about an IPO.” No con­crete plans for such a leap have been an­nounced as of Fri­day, he added.

Fri­day’s round was led by Ven­rock Health­care Cap­i­tal Part­ners, and was joined by oth­er new in­vestors Acu­ta Cap­i­tal Part­ners, Cor­morant As­set Man­age­ment, EcoR1 Cap­i­tal, Franklin Tem­ple­ton, Janus Hen­der­son In­vestors, Lo­gos Cap­i­tal, RTW In­vest­ments, LP, Sur­vey­or Cap­i­tal (a Citadel Com­pa­ny), Welling­ton Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny, and an undis­closed lead­ing glob­al in­vest­ment firm.

Ex­ist­ing in­vestors such as 5AM Ven­tures, RA Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, and ven­Bio Part­ners, along with strate­gic part­ners GC Lab­Cell and GC al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) last year sought to find ways to better coordinate large-scale clinical trials in the US — as the UK lead by example during the pandemic — especially for these emergency clinical trials.

The lobbying group PhRMA Tuesday called for more clinical trial diversity in underserved areas, including by making participation less of a burden, and expanding eligibility criteria when appropriate.