Seattle biotech company Deverra Therapeutics is raising cash for its cellular immunotherapies platform that helps doctors treat patients with cancer and other infectious diseases.
A new SEC filing reveals that the startup raised about $2.4 million through a mix of debt and warrants. We reached out to the company for more details and will update this story if we hear back.
Founded in 2019, Deverra has an exclusive license from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for a stem cell expansion and directed-differentiation platform. It’s based on more than 20 years of government-funded research and data from five clinical trials. The company’s tech and supply chain can provide universal donor cellular immunotherapies to treat cancer and other infectious diseases.
Colleen Delaney, the company’s founder and chief scientific officer, is a trained oncologist and stem cell transplant physician scientist. The Harvard Medical School graduate is also an affiliate investigator at Fred Hutch. Delaney was founder and chief scientific officer at Nohla Therapeutics, a biotech startup spun out of Fred Hutch that is no longer in operation.
Michael Yurkowsky, Deverra’s president and co-founder, was an investment banker and is also CEO of H-CYTE, a regenerative medicine bioscience firm. He has invested in more than 50 public and private companies in the life sciences sector through his family office YP Holdings.
Coeptis Therapeutics, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company, recently paid $570,000 and awarded four million shares to Deverra to license its immuno-oncology platform and clinical stage assets.
Earlier this month, Deverra raised $3.5 million in grant funding from the Andy Hill CARE Fund for two life science startup and development awards. It nabbed more than $10 million from a 2021 investment by Sorrento Therapeutics, according to SEC filings.
Funding for early-stage biotech startups is expected to drop 40% from last year.
Seattle, meanwhile, is growing as a biotech hub. The region ranked third among metro areas for life sciences employment growth, which increased 25% from 2019 to 2022.
