Immuneel Therapeutics builds personalized cell and gene therapies for cancer, and it has now raised over ₹100 crore in a Series B round to scale that effort. The company is tackling a brutal problem: advanced blood-cancer treatment is still scarce and expensive in India, especially when therapies depend on specialized manufacturing and tightly controlled hospital delivery. Founded in 2018 in Bengaluru by Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw alongside Siddhartha Mukherjee and Kush M. Parmar, the company is trying to turn one approved CAR-T product into a broader cross-border platform. The new round brought in Singularity AMC, Rainmatter by Zerodha, high-net-worth individuals, and existing backers including Mazumdar-Shaw, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital.
What does Immuneel Therapeutics actually do?
Immuneel Therapeutics develops and manufactures CAR-T cell therapies — a type of personalized immunotherapy in which a patient’s own T-cells are collected and genetically modified to recognize cancer. The cells are expanded in the lab and then infused back into the patient. In Immuneel’s treatment flow, the patient is first screened and registered at a qualified center, then undergoes leukapheresis. After that, the cells are sent to Immuneel’s lab for manufacturing. Patients then receive lymphodepletion chemotherapy and CAR-T infusion across 3 different days. Post-infusion monitoring and follow-up come next. The manufacturing step takes about 4 weeks on average, and post-infusion hospitalization can run 3 to 4 weeks depending on the clinical course.
Its commercial product is Qartemi, or varnimcabtagene autoleucel, an autologous second-generation CD19 CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory B-cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adults. In plain terms, Immuneel is working with the patient’s own cells and targeting CD19 on malignant B-cells. It uses a 4-1BB co-stimulatory domain. The company says the manufacturing process selects CD4 and CD8 T-cells. It also uses IL-7 and IL-15 to improve persistence. Qartemi is delivered in 3 fractions — 10%, 30%, and 60% — rather than one single dump dose. That design choice matters in a category where safety management is critical.
And this isn’t just a science story. A lot of the heavy lifting in CAR-T is boring, operational stuff. That’s where companies fail. Immuneel says Qartemi is manufactured on the Miltenyi CliniMACS Prodigy platform, a closed GMP system, with multi-step quality control. It uses GMP-grade raw materials and cryogenic transport in liquid-nitrogen vapor phase at -150°C. The company also highlights chain-of-custody and chain-of-identity controls. Those are non-negotiable when every batch belongs to one specific patient.
Before CAR-T, the patient path often meant more chemotherapy, more waiting, and a decent chance of running out of useful options. Immuneel’s pitch is a cleaner, structured pathway: one personalized manufacturing cycle and a planned infusion. Close monitoring follows, then long-term follow-up if the therapy works. That doesn’t make it simple. But it does make the process more standardized than the old “try the next line and hope” routine.
Who founded Immuneel Therapeutics and why?
The founding story
Immuneel was founded in 2018 in Bengaluru by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Kush M. Parmar. That lineup says a lot about the company’s DNA right away: biotech scale-up and frontline oncology thinking. It also brings venture-backed drug-development discipline. The original idea was clear too — advanced cell therapies shouldn’t be limited to a handful of rich markets and a tiny slice of patients.
Why the founders actually fit this category
Mazumdar-Shaw brings the industrial side. She founded Biocon in 1978, started the company from a garage in India, and has spent more than 4 decades building biotech businesses around affordable access and scaled manufacturing. If you were going to bet on an Indian founder to take a hard, process-heavy therapy and make it manufacturable locally, she’d be on a very short list.
Mukherjee brings the cancer lens. He’s a Columbia physician and a translational medicine researcher. He’s also a scientific co-founder of Vor Biopharma and a Pulitzer-winning author with deep credibility in oncology. Parmar adds the company-building and capital-markets side as managing partner at 5AM Ventures, with board roles across Akouos, Homology Medicines, Rallybio, and Vor Biopharma. The current operating layer matters too. CEO Amit Mookim is described as a business leader focused on healthcare access, while Dr. Lakshmikanth Gandikota has led multiple IND, BLA, and MAA approvals in biologics and cell and gene therapy.
What traction does Immuneel Therapeutics already have?
Immuneel is still a clinical-stage biotech, but it’s no longer a concept deck. Qartemi was commercially launched in January 2025, and the company’s pipeline page ties the product back to its collaboration with Hospital Clínic Barcelona, where varnimcabtagene autoleucel was already approved in Spain. Immuneel says Qartemi achieved 100% manufacturing success during the IMAGINE clinical trial in India. That’s the kind of operating metric investors watch closely in cell therapy. By August 2025, the company was already talking about two-year remission in blood-cancer patients. It wants to sell durability, not just approval.
How was the round structured?
This new round is a Series B of more than ₹100 crore. New participants include Singularity AMC, Rainmatter by Zerodha, and high-net-worth individuals, while existing investors Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital also joined. Immuneel had previously announced a $15 million Series A in June 2022 alongside the start of Phase II patient trials. The fresh money is earmarked for expanding GMP manufacturing capacity and advancing its next-generation deep-tech pipeline toward clinical milestones. It will also support Qartemi’s commercial rollout and push into Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Mazumdar-Shaw framed the round like this: “This company was founded with the belief that advanced cell therapies should not remain confined to a small segment of patients or a handful of geographies. This fundraise strengthens our ability to build a globally competitive CAR-T platform from India combining deep science, scalable manufacturing and significantly improved affordability. We believe India can play a meaningful role in shaping the future of cell and gene therapy for the world.”
CEO Amit Mookim was even more direct: “Qartemi’s commercialisation proved we can deliver world-class CAR-T outcomes at a fraction of Western costs. This Series B financing accelerates what comes next: a bold international expansion and a next-generation pipeline that will redefine how cell therapies reach patients globally. We are not just building a company—we are building a new global standard of care, from India.”
How does Immuneel compare with rivals?
In India, the closest direct reference point is ImmunoACT, the IIT Bombay-incubated company behind NexCAR19, which positions itself as India’s first approved CAR-T therapy. Outside India, the benchmark is older and much larger: Novartis with Kymriah, Kite with Yescarta, and Bristol Myers Squibb with Breyanzi all market approved CAR-T products for B-cell malignancies. Those aren’t identical competitors on geography or pricing. But they are the global standard any serious CAR-T company gets measured against.
The legacy alternative is still salvage chemotherapy or stem-cell-transplant pathways for relapsed or refractory lymphoma. Immuneel’s differentiation isn’t that it invented CAR-T. It’s trying to industrialize it in India with local manufacturing and integrated GMP processes. Controlled logistics are part of that. So is pricing that lands at a fraction of western cost. That’s what investors are backing here — not just a drug, but a delivery and manufacturing model that could travel across emerging markets.
Why does Immuneel Therapeutics funding matter?
Because cell therapy companies don’t scale on ambition alone. They scale on clean rooms and manufacturing slots. Release testing matters too. So do logistics, trained treatment centers, and the ability to keep all of that synchronized. When Immuneel says it will use this round to expand GMP manufacturing capacity, that’s the bottleneck. More capacity can mean more treated patients, fewer scheduling constraints, and a more credible commercial launch.
The round also matters because Immuneel is trying to graduate from “one approved product” to “platform company.” The money is going into a next-generation pipeline, not just Qartemi. Its recent 2026 announcements point the same way. Those include a partnership with Impact Guru and CarePal Money to improve financial access, plus work with Manas AI around next-generation biologics and in-vivo gene-based therapies.
There’s also a strategic signal in the geography. Asia Pacific and the Middle East aren’t random add-ons. They’re regions where cost, access, and local treatment infrastructure can decide whether advanced therapies become real businesses or stay prestige medicine for a few hospitals. Immuneel thinks India can be both the manufacturing base and the price-performance argument. That’s ambitious. It’s also a lot more believable now than it was 3 years ago.
How big is the CAR-T therapy market?
The macro setup is real. Grand View Research estimates the global cell therapy market was worth $4.74 billion in 2023 and projects it will reach about $20.07 billion by 2030, which implies a 22.66% CAGR. That kind of growth doesn’t mean every CAR-T startup wins. It does mean investors still see advanced therapies as a long-cycle category worth funding through manufacturing pain and regulatory complexity.
India’s cancer burden makes the access argument even harder to ignore. Government material released in early 2025 put the number of cancer incidences in India at more than 14 lakh in 2023, and earlier ICMR work had already projected a 12% rise in cases by 2025. Not all of those patients are CAR-T candidates, obviously. But a rising oncology burden creates pressure for more domestic high-end treatment capacity, especially in blood cancers where relapse can leave patients with very few good options.
There’s another shift underneath this. Cell and gene therapy used to be discussed almost entirely as a western pharma story. That’s changing as Asian companies build manufacturing expertise and academic-origin programs mature into commercial products. Regulators are getting more comfortable with advanced therapies too. Immuneel’s timing makes sense in that context — not because the risks are gone, but because the infrastructure gap is finally narrow enough to attack.
Where Immuneel Therapeutics goes next
Immuneel Therapeutics now has to prove that its pitch works outside a fundraising headline. Can it expand manufacturing without compromising turnaround times and move from early commercial traction to repeatable hospital adoption? Can an India-built CAR-T platform cross borders into Asia Pacific and the Middle East without losing speed on compliance and delivery?
That’s the part worth watching.
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FAQ
- What is the latest funding round for Immuneel Therapeutics?
Immuneel Therapeutics has raised over ₹100 crore in a Series B round. The investors named in the round include Singularity AMC, Rainmatter by Zerodha, high-net-worth individuals, and existing backers such as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital. - How does Qartemi CAR-T therapy work?
Qartemi is an autologous CD19 CAR-T therapy, which means it uses a patient’s own T-cells to attack B-cell lymphoma. The process typically starts with leukapheresis and moves into roughly 4 weeks of lab manufacturing. It then goes through lymphodepletion chemotherapy, infusion over 3 days, and close hospital monitoring afterward. - Who founded Immuneel Therapeutics?
Immuneel Therapeutics was founded in 2018 by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Kush M. Parmar. That’s a rare mix of biotech operating experience and oncology research credibility. It also brings venture-backed life-sciences expertise, which is why the company has looked more serious than a typical early-stage biotech from day 1. - Is CAR-T therapy becoming a bigger market in India?
Yes. India’s cancer burden keeps rising, while the global cell therapy market is projected to grow from $4.74 billion in 2023 to about $20.07 billion by 2030. That creates room for local manufacturers that can lower cost and build treatment capacity closer to patients.
