SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cellevolve Bio (“the Company” or “Cellevolve”), a development and commercialization company focused on cell therapies, today announced its launch following the successful close of seed financing and an exclusive manufacturing partnership with National Resilience, Inc. (Resilience), a biopharmaceutical manufacturing company. Founded and led by CEO Derrell Porter, MD, MBA, a biotechnology industry veteran with deep commercialization experience, Cellevolve has assembled a highly skilled leadership team and an esteemed group of global scientific and clinical advisors to advance its mission and strategic objectives.
"Cell therapies are transforming health outcomes for people living with grievous illnesses,” said Dr. Porter, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Cellevolve. “There is an abundance of promising new cell therapy innovations being developed around the world, with early data to support clinical efficacy. Our goal at Cellevolve is to build one of the largest cell therapy pipelines in the industry through partnerships with innovators, and deliver that breakthrough science to patients as commercially available therapies.”
The $6M seed financing includes investors Resilience; Chris Jeffers of Hibiscus BioVentures, a venture capital group; and Marcus Whitney of Jumpstart Nova, the first Black healthcare venture fund in America. Notably, Dr. Porter is part of a small but growing cadre of Black leaders in the Biopharma industry. Mr. Whitney and Mr. Jeffers will join Cellevolve’s Board of Directors, and Resilience will appoint a Board Observer.
Cellevolve has named Resilience as its exclusive manufacturing partner. The companies have established a unique collaboration where Resilience will participate in asset selection and may elect to contribute manufacturing services in exchange for equity in future financings.
“Manufacturing has been a critical barrier holding back cell therapies from reaching patients,” said Rahul Singhvi, ScD, Chief Executive Officer, Resilience. “By working with Cellevolve to create new manufacturing processes, we aim to help them produce medicines that can be made quickly and at scale to meet the high demand from people in need.”
Other notable investors in the financing round include:
- Jonathan Fassberg, (Vice Chair – Healthcare Investment Banking, Oppenheimer and Co. Inc.)
- Anshul Mangal
- Robert Parkinson III (Senior Partner, The Vistria Group)
- Dennis Purcell (Founder and Senior Partner, Aisling Capital LLC)
- Eric M. Stone (Founder and Former CEO, Velano Vascular Inc.)
- Boxcar Partners
- Catalytic Impact Fund
Joining Dr. Porter as part of the founding leadership team are three executive hires: Devin Murray, Chief Operating Officer; Sadie Whittaker, PhD, Chief External Affairs Officer, and Philip Vorhies, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations. Collectively the team brings decades of experience in developing and launching life-saving therapeutics. The Company is actively recruiting for key leadership roles in Development and Manufacturing.
Reference
- NORD (2021). Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy . Retrieved from https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/progressive-multifocal-leukoencephalopathy/. Accessed on September 28, 2021.
About Cellevolve
Cellevolve Bio is a development and commercialization company focused on cell therapies. Our mission is to accelerate the revolution in cell therapy by translating innovation into commercially available treatments. Founded by leaders with extensive experience developing and launching therapeutics, Cellevolve understands that cell therapy innovations require unique and specialized capabilities to advance them to approval and beyond. The company is addressing this need with its integrated CellutionTM clinical development and a commercialization platform that translates breakthrough science from the world’s leading innovators into powerful new therapies for patients.
For more information, please visit: www.cellevolve.com.
Follow Cellevolve on social media: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cellevolve/
