Bay Area-based startup Rani Therapeutics – which is creating a way to deliver biologic drugs orally – just welcomed another high profile strategic investor: AstraZeneca. This brings the company’s total funding up to $70 million, Rani said in a statement – and plans to use the funding to expand its team, build out new facilities and scale up its manufacturing.
Rani closed out a Series C round last May; notable investors then included Google Ventures and Novartis. Other investors in this latest round are Virtus Inspire Ventures and Ping An Ventures.
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The company is developing a means to convert injectable drugs – such as basal insulin, TNF-alpha inhibitors and interleukin antibodies – into oral biologics. It’s been working with Novartis and AstraZeneca/MedImmune for the past year or so.
“We developed Rani Therapeutics with a clear vision – give patients suffering from chronic illnesses a convenient, easy and painless alternative to subcutaneous injections,” CEO Mir Imran said in a statement.
