Wugen, a St. Louis biotech firm in the clinical stages of developing a drug for a rare form of cancer, has closed a $115 million Series C funding round. The startup, based in the Cortex Innovation District, was created through technology licensed from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018. The announcement brings the total amount of funds raised by Wugen to more than $315 million.
The following article was written by Samir Knox and originally published in St. Louis Inno on August 27, 2025.
A biotechnology firm in the clinical stages of developing a drug for a rare form of cancer has closed a $115 million Series C funding round.
Wugen Inc. announced Wednesday that the funding round was led by earlier investor Fidelity Management & Research Co., based in Boston, along with RiverVest Venture Partners and Lightchain Capital, both based in St. Louis; Abingworth and ICG, both UK-based; Shanghai-based LYZZ Capital; Tybourne Capital Management, of Hong Kong; New York City-based Aisling Capital Management; and other life sciences investors.
Wugen President and CEO Kumar Srinivasan said that money will not go into major expansions, a large increase in workforce or a new office space, but instead the funding will be put back into the company’s research to develop “off the shelf” cancer treatment, in this case a sector with significant unmet needs, T-cell therapies for some types of leukemia and lymphoma.
“As a private company, we need to be extremely cost-efficient,” Srinivasan said Tuesday in an interview. “So, we run a very tight shop, very, very capital efficient operation. … We need to spend every dollar wisely.”
Wugen’s drug candidate going through clinical testing is called WU-CART-007, a candidate the company says is promising for treating relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoblastic lymphoma. The company said Wednesday that the drug candidate had seen an overall response rate of 91% in a global “Phase 1/2 study,” and a composite complete remission rate of 73% at a recommended dose.
Srinivasan said that drugs to treat the type of cancer they do, using T-cells – a type of white blood cell, from existing healthy donors – is the most advanced form of research in their specific space. He said nothing comparable has been approved in that sector for more than 20 years. If trials continue to go well, he said, the company expects to file U.S. Food and Drug Administration Biologics License Applications in 2027.
Srinivasan described the subset of people this drug would apply to as much more niche than that of drugs that address more common diseases, like lung cancer. He estimated that there were roughly 6,000 patients between the U.S. and Europe, based on Wugen’s commercial assessment. The only competitor to their potential drug in the space is one called Nelarabine, which he said is ineffective. Rather than penetrating a larger market, Wugen is looking to saturate that niche, and present the only option in recent years for those patients.
When asked about the market for that drug, he said, “It’ll be a reasonable. It’s not multibillion-dollar, globally, but it’ll be easily close to between $1 billion and $2 billion globally.”
The startup, founded in 2018, was created through technology licensed from Washington University and is developing so-called natural killer (NK), alongside T-cell, therapies.
Wednesday’s announcement brings the total amount of funds raised by the firm to more than $315 million, with a $172 million Series B funding round in 2021, then with support that included St. Louis-based investors RiverVest Venture Partners, BioGenerator and Lightchain Capital.
Srinivasan said the company has around 50 employees, with the majority of those locally-based at its headquarters at 4260 Forest Park Ave. in the Cortex Innovation District in the Central West End.