Im­muno­core — once a dar­ling of the now-dis­graced Neil Wood­ford — is shak­ing off its past by rais­ing more than $130 mil­lion in a Se­ries B haul.

The Ox­ford­shire, UK-based com­pa­ny, which launched in 2015 to ad­vance its T cell re­cep­tor (TCR) tech­nol­o­gy with a mam­moth $320 mil­lion round, was soon glo­ri­fied with a val­u­a­tion of near­ly $1 bil­lion (£800m). That uni­corn sta­tus proved to be its Achilles heel, trig­ger­ing an ex­o­dus of top man­age­ment in re­cent years as po­ten­tial in­vestors balked at the old val­u­a­tion.

Bahi­ja Jal­lal, for­mer pres­i­dent of the now-de­funct Med­Im­mune unit at As­traZeneca, took over the reins as CEO in ear­ly 2019, promis­ing to steady the ship.

“I be­lieve for what we promised to de­liv­er, the fund­ing is ad­e­quate for that,” Jal­lal told End­points News.

Im­muno­core, which counts Genen­tech, GSK, As­traZeneca, Eli Lil­ly, and the Bill and Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion as part­ners, has three com­pounds be­ing test­ed in hu­mans (in­clud­ing tebenta­fusp, which is in a piv­otal melanoma study) and plans to shep­herd two more in­to the clin­ic this year, she said.

The new round comes as the in­dus­try’s ap­petite for TCR ther­a­pies is bur­geon­ing. One of the key com­po­nents of the im­mune sys­tem are T cells, which oblit­er­ate aber­rant cells by us­ing T cell re­cep­tor (TCR) recog­ni­tion of cell sur­face mark­ers known as anti­gens. When a T cell rec­og­nizes a tu­mor anti­gen via the TCR, it snuffs the ma­lig­nant cell on which it re­sides. TCR tech typ­i­cal­ly in­volves reengi­neer­ing T cell re­cep­tors so that they can bet­ter rec­og­nize can­cer pro­teins, spark­ing an as­sault on tu­mors.

Im­muno­core’s in-house TCR tech­nol­o­gy has spawned bis­pecifics de­signed to over­come the lim­i­ta­tions of oth­er im­munol­o­gy agents by com­bin­ing a TCR to tar­get and rec­og­nize can­cer, in­fect­ed or au­toim­mune cells and an ef­fec­tor func­tion to ac­ti­vate (for can­cer and in­fec­tious dis­eases) or sup­press (for au­toim­mune dis­eases) the im­mune sys­tem.

One of the at­trib­ut­es of the tech­nol­o­gy is hav­ing ac­cess to any pro­tein that is processed by the body, in­clud­ing the in­tra­cel­lu­lar pro­teins that can­not be ad­dressed by mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies, Jal­lal not­ed.

“You see the suc­cess of the check­point in­hibitors in can­cer, but they’re still ad­dress­ing on­ly the anti­gen-spe­cif­ic T cells,” she said. “Our tech­nol­o­gy can bring any T cells and ren­der them, if you will, killer cells to kill the tu­mor cells.”

This B round was led by Gen­er­al At­lantic, with par­tic­i­pa­tion of old stake­hold­ers Eli Lil­ly and RTW In­vest­ments and new in­vestors CCB In­ter­na­tion­al, JDRF T1D Fund, Rock Springs Cap­i­tal, Ter­ra Mag­num Cap­i­tal Part­ners and WuXi AppTec’s Cor­po­rate Ven­ture Fund. The Tele­graph had re­port­ed in Sep­tem­ber that New York-based Gen­er­al At­lantic had com­mit­ted an ini­tial £60 mil­lion to what was shap­ing up to be a £100 mil­lion round.

Jal­lal would not com­ment on a time­line, but said an IPO re­mains one of Im­muno­core’s op­tions go­ing for­ward.

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.