Rani Therapeutics Completes Latest Round of Funding; Brings Total Investment to $70M

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Rani Therapeutics announced today that it has closed its latest round of funding, bringing the company's total investment to more than $70 million. New investors include AstraZeneca, Virtus Inspire Ventures, and Ping An Ventures. Existing investors in Rani Therapeutics include Novartis, Google Ventures, Buttonwood, GF Ventures, KPC Pharmaceuticals, InCube Ventures and VentureHealth, among others. The funding will support expansion of the team, new facilities and manufacturing scale up.

Rani, founded in 2012 and spun out of InCube Labs, is developing a novel technology platform to convert injectable drugs such as TNF-alpha inhibitors, interleukin antibodies, basal insulin and GLP-1 into oral pills. In the last year, the company has entered into strategic collaborations with Novartis and Astra Zeneca/MedImmune to test its platform with selected drugs. 

"We developed Rani Therapeutics with a clear vision – give patients suffering from chronic illnesses a convenient, easy and painless alternative to subcutaneous injections," said Mir Imran, Chairman & CEO of Rani Therapeutics. "Our team has created a breakthrough drug delivery platform supported by a solid patent portfolio and that is what is attracting potential partners and investors.  We are pleased with our progress, and are now laser focused on demonstrating value for a variety of therapies." 

"Delivering biologics orally would have a tremendous impact on patients, especially for those suffering from chronic diseases that require them to regularly take medications," said Jiang Zhang, Managing Director, Ping An Ventures. "Rani is developing a revolutionary platform and we are very excited to support the company in this exciting next phase."

As part of its next stage of growth, Rani recently hired Robert Gaffney as Vice President of Operations to lead the company's expansion. Gaffney joined from Spinal Modulation, an InCube Labs company acquired by St. Jude Medical in 2015, where he served as Chief Operating Officer. 

About Rani Therapeutics 
Rani Therapeutics has developed a novel approach for the oral delivery of peptides, proteins and therapeutic antibodies which to date can only be delivered through injections. The approach and technology for Rani Therapeutics was developed at InCube Labs, a multi-disciplinary life sciences R&D lab focused on developing breakthrough medical innovations. InCube is led by Mir Imran, a prolific medical inventor, entrepreneur and investor, who has founded more than 20 life sciences companies and holds more than 400 patents. Many of Imran's innovations have resulted in new standards of care, including the first FDA-approved Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator. For more information, please visit: www.ranitherapeutics.com and www.incubelabs.com.

SOURCE Rani Therapeutics

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