A venture capital firm formed by a founder of one of the first companies to win Food and Drug Administration approval for a cell therapy for cancer closed a new fund worth more than half of $1 billion.
Boston-based Vida Ventures said Thursday that it had closed its Vida Ventures II, or Vida II fund, raising $600 million. The close brings the total amount the firm has raised to about $1 billion since the firm’s founding in late 2017 by Arie Belldegrun, founder of Kite Pharma. Kite won FDA approval for Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in October 2017. In August of that year, Gilead Sciences announced it would acquire Kite for $11.9 billion.
