AvenCell secures up to $47M from Ligand to fund CAR-T pipeline
What's the deal? AvenCell Therapeutics, a clinical-stage cell therapy company, has entered a financing agreement worth up to $47 million with Ligand Pharmaceuticals. The capital will advance AvenCell's pipeline of controllable, allogeneic CAR-T cancer therapies, including its lead program AVC-201.
How is it structured? Ligand has committed up to $41 million in exchange for a mid single-digit to low double-digit royalty on worldwide net sales of all current and future AvenCell assets, with the rate set by the total ultimately funded. The money arrives in four tranches: one at closing and three tied to clinical milestones. Ligand has also committed up to $6 million in Series C financing.
What does AvenCell do? Founded in 2021, the company combines switchable CAR-T technology from AvenCell EuropeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → with Intellia's CRISPR/Cas9-based allogeneic engineering. Its platform aims to deliver "off-the-shelf" cell therapies with greater control over CAR-T activity across blood cancers and autoimmune diseases.
What's the endgame? Lead candidate AVC-201, an anti-CD123 CAR-T, is in a Phase 1b expansion trial for relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia. A second program, AVC-203, is in Phase 1a for B-cell malignancies.
Why Ligand? Ligand operates as a royalty aggregator, funding late-stage programs in exchange for long-term economic interests. It manages one of the largest biopharmaceutical royalty portfolios in the industry, with stakes in more than 200 development and commercial-stage assets.
"We believe the combination of these technologies, together with the encouraging clinical data generated to date with AVC-201, highlights the potential of AvenCell's platform across a broad range of diseases," said Todd Davis, chief executive officer of Ligand.
Andrew Schiermeier, president and chief executive officer of AvenCell, said the deal "provides us critical resources to support the continued development of these potentially important new treatment options for patients impacted by these difficult-to-treat cancers."
The signal: The $47 million commitment lands in the 94th percentile of all-time debt rounds for US health startups, underscoring how royalty financing is becoming a favoured route for cell therapy developers to fund clinical work without traditional equity dilution.
Image credit: joebeone
