Quell raises US$156m for Treg cell therapy programme

The financing round was co-led by Jeito Capital, Ridgeback Capital Investments, SV Health Investors and Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC with participation from founding investor Syncona. New investors include British Patient Capital through its Future Fund: Breakthrough programme, Janus Henderson Investors, Monashee Investment Management, Point72 and funds managed by Tekla Capital Management LLC.

Quell will use the proceeds to fund the Phase I/II trial of its first-in-class antigen-specific multi-modular CAR-Treg cell therapy candidate. The therapy is designed to prevent organ rejection in liver transplant patients by inducing durable immune tolerance and eliminating the need for lifelong immunosuppression. It is on-track to become the first multi-modular engineered CAR-Treg cell therapy in clinical development. Quell expects to start patient recruitment before the end of the year.

The London-based biopharma also wants to fund the development of its autologous multi-modular engineered Treg platform, and further develop an allogeneic CAR-Treg platform. Quell also wants to use a portion of the money to advance its pipeline in its core therapeutic areas of transplantation, neuroinflammatory diseases and autoimmune diseases.

“With this financing, we have the full suite of capabilities – capital, cutting-edge science, and a world-class team – to advance our pipeline and platform to key milestones on our path ultimately to deliver potentially transformative therapies to patients suffering from diseases caused by immune dysregulation,” commented said Iain McGill, Chief Executive Officer of Quell Therapeutics.