Gaithersburg, MD (Press Release) – Arcellx, a privately-held bio­pharma­ceu­tical com­pany, to­day an­nounced that it has raised $85 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing. Proceeds will be used to ad­vance the Com­pany’s ARC-T + sparX pro­grams, in­clud­ing clin­i­cal devel­op­ment of a bivalent BCMA-targeted cell ther­apy in mul­ti­ple myeloma, and a CD123-targeted ther­apy in acute myeloid leukemia. The Series B will also fund earlier stage ARC-T + sparX pro­grams for patients with solid tumors and dis­eases outside on­col­ogy.

Participants in the Series B in­clude both existing and new in­vestors to Arcellx. New in­vestors Aju IB and Quan Capital co-led the round, followed by Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, LG Technology Ventures, JVC Investment Partners, and cer­tain funds man­aged by Clough Capital Partners, L.P. Existing in­vestors Novo Holdings, S.R. One Limited, NEA and Takeda Ventures also par­tic­i­pated in the financing.

Concurrent with the financing, Hugo Beekman, Partner at Aju IB, and Lewis (Rusty) Williams, M.D., Ph.D., Venture Partner at Quan Capital, have joined the Arcellx board of directors.

“The fi­nan­cial and stra­te­gic sup­port from our in­vestors allows Arcellx to ac­cel­er­ate devel­op­ment of a robust pipe­line of ARC-T + sparX pro­grams for patients in need,” commented David Hilbert, Ph.D., Pres­i­dent and Chief Executive Officer of Arcellx. “As impressive as con­ven­tional CART ther­a­pies have been, their safety and ef­fi­cacy profiles are chal­lenged by severe toxicities, high rates of relapse, and chal­leng­ing target selection in the solid tumor setting. The ARC-T + sparX plat­form addresses these con­cerns by placing ARC-T cells under the con­trol of one or more sparX pro­teins that uniquely de­ter­mine how the ARC-T cells recog­nize tumor, and the speed with which ARC-T cells kill tumor. In the coming months we will begin clin­i­cal testing of our lead BCMA-targeted ther­apy in mul­ti­ple myeloma.”

Rusty Williams, M.D., Ph.D., commented, “Arcellx has reached a pos­i­tive inflection in its novel plat­form and pipe­line with the poten­tial to im­prove ef­fi­cacy and safety. We are ex­cited to sup­port the com­pany as it ad­vances new cell ther­a­pies with the poten­tial to de­liver better out­comes for patients.”

Hugo Beekman, Partner at Aju IB, commented, “Arcellx has invented a dif­fer­en­ti­ated cell ther­apy plat­form with ARC-T + sparX that allows simultaneous and sequential targeting of mul­ti­ple tumor an­ti­gens. The ability of sparX pro­teins to reprogram the spe­cif­icity of ARC-T cells has the poten­tial to address the high in­ci­dence of tumor relapse, as well as the in­her­ent diversity of tumor an­ti­gens ex­pressed within solid tumors. The features of this plat­form, along with scalable and efficient manu­fac­tur­ing processes, are in­tended to facilitate the Com­pany’s devel­op­ment of new ther­a­pies in on­col­ogy, and more broadly, in auto­immune dis­ease and the trans­plant setting.”

About ARC-T + sparX Technology

Arcellx has pioneered a pro­pri­e­tary sparX + ARC-T plat­form in which a Soluble Protein Antigen-Receptor X-linker (sparX) simultaneously binds one or more tumor an­ti­gens and engages a universal re­cep­tor ex­pressed on the Antigen-Receptor Complex T cells (ARC-T). The for­ma­tion of a sparX + ARC-T + tumor cell complex results in tumor kill­ing. This thera­peutic plat­form is de­signed to en­hance safety and ef­fi­cacy while accelerating devel­op­ment by broadening patient accessibility and in­creas­ing efficiency of manu­fac­tur­ing rel­a­tive­ to existing cell ther­a­pies.

About Arcellx, Inc.

Arcellx is a privately held bio­pharma­ceu­tical com­pany located in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Arcellx team is devoted to providing patients with superior immune cell ther­a­pies through scientific inno­va­tion, ac­cel­er­ated devel­op­ment, and responsible patient care. Although our initial clin­i­cal focus is cancer ther­apy, we are com­mit­ted to extending our Antigen-Receptor Complex T cell (ARC-T) ther­a­pies across a broad spectrum of human dis­ease.

Source: Arcellx.