Tactiva raises $35M in venture funding; successfully leverages life sciences resources through UB BIG

Tactiva Therapeutics, development stage immuno-oncology company with a unique approach to adoptive T-cell therapy, announced today it has secured a $35 million Series A financing and closed on the first tranche of the financing.  Proceeds of the financing will be used to advance the clinical development of Tactiva Therapeutics' dual enhanced adoptive cell therapy (DEACT™) platform for the treatment of Multiple Myeloma and several solid tumor type cancer indications. 

The Series A financing was led by Panacea Ventures and included Vi Ventures and Efung Capital.  This is among the largest private capital raises a Buffalo based biotech start up company has secured.

James Huang, Managing Partner of Panacea Ventures, stated, "We are very excited by the potential of Tactiva's approach to TCR therapy.  We believe it can have a meaningful impact on the lives of patients with cancer, and look forward to working closely with them to move their clinical programs forward to fulfill that promise."

Matthew Colpoys, CEO of Tactiva Therapeutics, remarked, "This investment will allow us to aggressively pursue our clinical development program, and demonstrate the efficacy of our dual TCR approach.  We are thrilled to have this syndicate of investors as partners in that effort, and believe they bring an abundance of resources that will enable us to advance our programs on a global level."

Since launching in early 2017, Tactiva Therapeutics has leveraged the entrepreneurial ecosystem that the University at Buffalo (UB) and its partners in Western New York are working to grow.

The Company, which is located at UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, is also a partner with the university's Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics (BIG). Part of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's Buffalo Billion, BIG is one of the key initiatives helping to build the region's innovation economy by leveraging its life sciences assets to drive economic growth. BIG was formed to support the application of advanced analytics, provide access to genomic expertise, and health informatics support to improve efficiency and effectiveness of health care outcomes in collaboration with companies in the biomedical and healthcare industries.

Tactiva Therapeutics has also received funding from the UB Center for Advanced Technology in Big Data and Health Sciences, which supported a collaboration that aids the company's discovery efforts.  Tactiva projects adding 45 new employees in Buffalo.

"We are excited to support Tactiva in this next generation immunotherapy.  Advancing the development of personalized medicine as a key driver of the Buffalo life sciences ecosystem is an important focus of the BIG initiative," said Christina Orsi, University at Buffalo Associate Vice President, Economic Development.

"Tactiva is utilizing multiple New York State initiatives working in tandem to build its success," said Howard Zemsky, Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner. "It is a StartUp NY company through University at Buffaloand making use of The Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics (BIG) to create immunotherapies to attack and eliminate cancer while building the healthcare economy regionally."

About Tactiva Therapeutics
Tactiva is a development stage immuno-oncology company with a unique approach to adoptive T-cell therapy. Tactiva's dual enhanced adoptive cell therapy (DEACT™) platform, consists of engineered CD4/CD8 cells which generate a durable supply of CD4 cells with direct anti-tumor activity as well as sustained helper function to CD8 T cell derived TCR-transduced effector T cells.  Tactiva Therapeutics is working to develop the next generation of cancer immunotherapies by utilizing a new approach to cell therapy. This type of personalized cancer treatment enhances the patient's immune system ability to tackle the disease.