Rani Therapeutics, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., announced it had closed on its latest funding round, now totaling more than $70 million. Existing investors included Novartis (NVS), Google Ventures, Buttonwood, GF Ventures, KPC Pharmaceuticals, inCube Ventures and VentureHealth. New investors include AstraZeneca (AZN), Virtus Inspire Ventures, and Ping An Ventures. Rani focuses on a development platform to allow biologic drugs that are typically injected to be taken orally. Drugs that fall into this category include TNF-alpha inhibitors, interleukin antibodies, basal insulin and GLP-1.
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