February 26, 2021 -- Artiva Biotherapeutics has closed $120 million in financing to advance its natural killer (NK) cell therapy development programs and expand ongoing research and development activities.
The company's cell therapies use the innate antitumor biology and safety features of NK cells. They target cancer through the use of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) or antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) enhancement through therapeutic antibody or innate cell engager combination therapy.
The company's pipeline includes the following:
The NK cell platform incorporates cell expansion, activation, and engineering technology developed by corporate partner GC LabCell, a member of the GC family of companies.
Artiva's manufacturing platform supports large-scale production and cryopreservation of off-the-shelf allogeneic NK cell therapies and proprietary CAR-NK and NK-specific gene-editing technologies to augment therapeutic activity, Artiva said.
The series B financing round was led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners.