UCL spin-out Autolus secures £40 million funding

Autolus Limited, a biopharmaceutical spin-out from UCL Business, announced today that it has raised £40 million of new capital. Autolus focuses on the development and commercialisation of next-generation engineered T-cell therapies for haematological and solid tumours. Autolus is founded upon the work of Dr Martin Pule, an academic clinical haematologist at the UCL Cancer Institute and NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre and a thought-leader in T-cell engineering. T-cells are part of our immune system which normally kill infected cells. T-cells can be taken from a person's blood sample, grown in the laboratory and "re-programmed" to recognise and kill cancer cells just as they would naturally attack an infection. Woodford Investment Management and Perceptive Bioscience Investments participated in the new funding, which augments the previous £30 million investment from founding investor Syncona. The funds will enable Autolus to develop its proprietary pipeline of engineered T-cell products, and to further implement its industry-leading platform of T-cell programming technologies.