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ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Spreading Carma

Carma Therapeutics uses CAR macrophages to eat up solid tumors

May 18, 2017 1:17 PM UTC

Carma Therapeutics LLC is subverting macrophages’ tumor-promoting role by engineering in chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to turn the phagocytic cells into agents that suppress the growth of solid tumors.

The company is a translational play from the lab of Saar Gill, and has spun out from the University of Pennsylvania with a soon-to-be-announced seed funding. Carma hopes to raise up to $50 million in a series A by year-end, and put its first CAR macrophage (CARMA), an autologous therapy, in the clinic by the end of 2018. Gill is an assistant professor of medicine at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. ...