Rubius Therapeutics bolsters its cell therapies mission by $120 million

A US biotech which calls itself the pioneer of a ‘new class of extraordinarily active and differentiated cell therapies’ has raised $120 million in a highly oversubscribed private financing.

Rubius Therapeutics has developed the technology to grow, genetically engineer and mature long-circulating red cell therapeutics aimed at providing clinical benefits across multiple therapeutic areas.

The funds raised will be used to accelerate the advancement of Rubius’ Red-Cell Therapeutics (RCT) product portfolio, to further build out its team and to prepare to enter human clinical trials in 2018. This financing follows the successful achievement of several key milestones, including the clinical scale production of cultured red cells in bioreactors and the generation of preclinical proof-of-concept data for several lead programs.