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Finance Watch: Rakuten Aspyrian Raises $150m VC Round For Laser-Activated Cancer Drugs

 
• By Mandy Jackson

Private investors, including Japanese e-commerce mogul Hiroshi Mikitani, backed a $150m Series C round for Rakuten Aspyrian and its photoimmunotherapy platform. Also, pharma-backed therapeutic video game developer Akili boosts Series C to $68m, and Summit garners additional BARDA funding.

Finance Watch

Rakuten Aspyrian Inc. has raised $150m in Series C venture capital to fund a Phase III clinical trial that it intends to start before the end of this year to test its laser-activated antibody conjugate in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, and to initiate two to three additional studies for ASP-1929.

The San Diego-based firm has raised $238m to date with the enthusiastic backing of billionaire businessman Hiroshi Mikitani, who founded the Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten Inc. and began investing in novel cancer treatments after his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012. Mikitani was the sole investor in Rakuten Aspyrian's $40m Series B round in 2016

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