Latest news with #UniversityCity-based
Technical.ly
4 days ago
- Business
- Technical.ly
Fore Biotherapeutics raises another $38M for cancer drug trial, bringing its latest round to $113M
Philly life sciences companies are still seeing massive raises, despite analyst chatter about the sector's shortcomings. Biotech company Fore Biotherapeutics brought in $38 million, the second installment to a later-stage round that began in 2023. Local orgs are also getting funding to expand tech education and job training in Philadelphia and beyond. Tech education nonprofit Hopeworks received a $1.2 million grant to expand its workforce development programming to two new cities on the East Coast. Plus, developers received $30 million from the state to continue creating manufacturing and commercialization space at the Navy Yard, which will hopefully eventually lead to business attraction and job creation, a partner organization said. Get all the details on the latest money moves below the chart, where we look at the top 10 companies hiring for tech jobs in the Philadelphia market and how that's changed since the previous month. Life sciences giant Fore Biotherapeutics rakes in another massive round University City-based biotech company Fore Biotherapeutics raised $38 million, it announced last week. The company develops therapies for cancer, specifically a treatment called plixorafenib. The funding will advance a phase two clinical trial for the drug called the FORTE Master Protocol. 'We are well-positioned to continue our capitally efficient execution and make significant strides in delivering the ongoing FORTE Master Protocol,' said William Hinshaw, CEO of Fore. 'As we look to multiple anticipated interim analyses and clinical data supporting potential registration under the accelerated approval pathway, with FDA submissions potentially at the end of next year.' This round was an extension of its $75 million Series D in 2023, meaning the round now totals $113 million. Hopeworks plans expansion thanks to $1.2M grant Tech education and workforce development organization Hopeworks received a $1.2 million grant from the Hg Foundation earlier this month. Over the next three years, the grant will help expand the nonprofit's reach to two new cities: Newark, New Jersey, and an undetermined second location. The plan is to expand to Newark first, Dan Rhoton, CEO of Hopeworks, told The plan for the second location is to target somewhere along the I-95 corridor, likely in Delaware or Maryland. But Hopeworks isn't in a rush to move forward with this expansion, it wants to make sure the program in Newark is solid before moving forward, he said. 'We don't need Hopeworks to be in 20 cities,' he said. 'We need young adults to get their lives changed. That's the really important part.' Hopeworks' model provides trauma-informed tech training and paid work opportunities to young adults with the goal of getting young adults from low-income backgrounds into sustainable, well-paying careers. The organization started in Camden in 1999 and expanded to Kensington in 2022. In those locations, it offers programs in web design, geographic information services, data analytics and business. Only the web design program will be expanding to the new cities. 'We continue to prove that young adults in Camden, Kensington and now maybe Newark are the folks who can fill the jobs you need,' Rhoton said. 'It's changing the conversation about where you go looking for talent.' DCED awards $30M to the Philly Navy Yard The Shapiro administration awarded $30 million to real estate developers Ensemble/Mosaic Navy Yard to build the Navy Yard Greenway District. This money comes from the Pennsylvania Strategic Investments to Enhance Sites program run by the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), which awarded $64 million to 11 projects throughout the state in its first round. The funding will specifically be used for utility infrastructure, soil excavation, grading and stormwater management to eventually turn 700,000 square feet into advanced manufacturing and commercialization space. '[The funding] will help attract new businesses, support the expansion of our life sciences and advanced manufacturing industries, and create hundreds of good-paying jobs across a wide range of skill and educational levels,' said Jodie Harris, president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, which partners with Ensemble/Mosaic. More money moves: The Montgomery County Investment Development Authority plans to commit $500,000 to the Montco Made Investment Initiative, a partnership with Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. King of Prussia-based fintech company PowerPay closed a $400 million 'committed warehouse facility,' which means the company can borrow up to that amount to fund its customers' loans. The DCED awarded $2 million to venture capital firm Neovate Life Sciences through the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority. This funding will be invested in life sciences companies in Pennsylvania. Governor Josh Shapiro's 2025 to 2026 budget proposes $50 million for a new PA Innovation program. This is broken down into a $30 million initiative to expand life sciences job growth and $20 million to support large-scale innovation. 2025 RealLIST Startup Civic received a $50,000 grant from the Draper Foundation through the Wharton Bridge Fund, the company told Biotech company Nuevocor, which is based in Singapore but has its US headquarters in Montgomery County, raised a $45 million Series B round.
Technical.ly
04-04-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Spark Therapeutics files notice to lay off 300 employees this year
Cell and gene therapy standout Spark Therapeutics is undergoing its second shakeup in a month, with plans to lay off about half of its workforce. Several hundred people will be affected. A WARN notice, which companies file to provide advance notice of layoffs, reported 298 eliminated positions in the Philadelphia region. A Spark Therapeutics spokesperson told the Philadelphia Business Journal on Thursday it would be laying off 337 of its almost 650 employees. These changes are expected to occur in three waves: in May, July and at the end of 2025. The remaining 310 employees will be incorporated into parent company Roche, a multinational pharmaceutical company. Spark first announced on January 30 the decision to integrate more of its work into Roche, spokesperson Denise Bradley told The impacted employees will be eligible for severance, outplacement services and will be able to apply for other roles within Roche. Spark's plans for its University City-based Gene Therapy Innovation Center in Philadelphia have not changed, Bradley said. Last month, Roche classified the former startup as a financial loss following the end of its trial for a hemophilia A gene therapy treatment, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The company is still working on a new Hemophilia A gene product, Spark previously told The layoff announcement comes less than a year after Spark's previous workforce reduction, when it let less than 50 of its employees go in July 2024. At the end of last year, the company welcomed Roche veteran Sylke Poehling as its new CEO, replacing Ron Phillip, who had been in the role since 2022. Spark's year of downsizing Recent struggles at Spark, which was founded by Jeffrey Marrazzo in 2013 and was considered a big Philadelphia success story, indicate the need for the gene therapy sector to make manufacturing more cost effective, Rebecca Grant, senior director of life sciences and innovation for the city's Department of Commerce, previously told But the company itself heavily contributed to the development of the industry as a whole. 'They really created a lot of recognition for gene therapy and innovation,' Grant said. 'Now more people understand what gene therapy means and how it can literally cure disease.' In 2021, the company announced plans for a 500,000-square-foot Gene Therapy Innovation Center in University City. At the time, Spark said the new site would house over 500 jobs. The Innovation Center is still expected to be completed next year, Spark spokesperson Bradley previously told The Penn spinout is known for developing the first FDA-approved gene therapy, Luxturna. Pharma giant Roche acquired Spark in 2019 for $4.8 billion, the largest VC-backed exit in Philadelphia at the time. 'Gene therapy is not a huge sector, and Spark was a trailblazer,' Dean Miller, president of the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, previously said. '[It's] never easy when your trailblazer starts to disappear a little further.' Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
