NZ$30 million. That is what BioOra has locked in as the first close of its Series A2 round. The second close is due by the end of December. The round targets NZ$45 million. Then, a listing on the ASX in 2028.
On the same day, the company closed a licence agreement with Wellington Zhaotai Therapies covering exclusive global rights to WZTL-002, a third-generation anti-CD19 CAR T construct. In May the same two parties signed only a Heads of Terms. This time it is a full contract.
CHRONICLE: BioOra — from incubator to exchange listing
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
2021 ──── 2024 ──── 2026 ──── 2026 ──── 2028
🧫 ⚗️ 🏭 💰 📈
Founded First Facility NZ$30m ASX
inside CAR T breaks first listing
Malaghan in NZ ground close
Chronology assembled from BioOra's public announcements, round disclosures and a June 2026 meeting record with the New Zealand Ministry of Health.
The company started life inside the Malaghan Institute in Wellington in 2021. Its commercial plant is being built in Christchurch, on land it broke ground on this year.
What was traded, and for what
Nobody published the price. Three components of the deal are known: an upfront cash payment, equity in BioOra Limited, and royalties on future product sales. Wellington Zhaotai is a joint venture that includes the Malaghan Institute.
BioOra manufactures the WZTL-002 construct as atla-cel — atlacabtagene autoleucel, an autologous CAR T product built from the patient's own cells. Clinical protocols use the name atla-cel. Licence paperwork uses WZTL-002.
"This licence secures the science that atla-cel is built on, and our first close gives us the resources to keep delivering for patients."John Robson, Chief Executive Officer, BioOra
Robson joined the company in 2024. Before that he ran Bridgewest Ventures' New Zealand arm — the investor that now sits inside the first close.
The first close is not the round
NZ$30 million out of NZ$45 million. The remaining NZ$15 million has to arrive before December ends. Until the second close lands, the round is incomplete.
Series A2, first close
Round target is NZ$45 million, with a second close due by the end of December 2026. BioOra describes Series A2 as the last private raise before an ASX listing in 2028. · BioOra, 2026
Existing shareholders took part alongside two new large investors, Bridgewest Ventures and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The children's hospital did not simply write a cheque. In April 2026 the two organisations announced a partnership on atla-cel for paediatric acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
A hospital holding equity in a biotech is unusual. Venture rounds are normally signed by financial investors. Here the money went straight into a named paediatric programme, and the counterparty on the other side of the table runs a paediatric oncology programme of its own.
Three line items get funded: finishing atla-cel manufacturing for the ENABLE-2 trial, the regulatory dossier for Medsafe, and completion of the Christchurch plant.
The plant is the actual asset
BioOra runs its cell production on the Cocoon platform developed by Octane Medical. Manual CAR T manufacturing runs on human hands: one batch, one patient, a long chain of manual steps. Automation takes out part of that bottleneck.
BioOra Health & Technology Centre
Commercial facility at the Christchurch Health Precinct. The company describes it as the first purpose-built cell and gene therapy manufacturing site in the Southern Hemisphere. · Bridgewest Ventures, 2026
Construction started in 2026. The same year the company secured Queensland government funding for biomanufacturing work at ENTRI, which is a state programme and sits outside this round entirely.
The first close de-risks manufacturing capacity, not the science itself
The 2028 listing depends on one variable — whether ENABLE-2 lands with Medsafe on schedule
The trial is moving faster than the paperwork
ENABLE-2 is a Phase 2 study in relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, sponsored by the Malaghan Institute. As of 1 October 2026 it was more than halfway through enrolment.
The registration number is NCT06486051. The earlier ENABLE-1 study, the country's first CAR T trial, is complete, and it established that automated manufacturing works inside a clinical setting.
No Phase 2 efficacy figures have been published. Any claim that clinical benefit has been demonstrated at this stage would be empty.
In June 2026, at a meeting with the Ministry of Health, Robson argued something different. He warned that the public system would move too slowly, costing lives and threatening the company's momentum. Public access, he said, was realistic in the first quarter of 2027 if the funding lined up.
The clinic is not the slow part. The regulator is.
Where this breaks
The second close has not happened. NZ$15 million is a target, not a balance. December remains the only real confirmation of the round.
The royalty terms are undisclosed. If BioOra's equity stake in Wellington Zhaotai is small, the company gained the right to manufacture someone else's construct without control over its commercial fate.
The 2028 listing is a plan, not a commitment. Exchanges reject plenty of applicants, and they tend to do it at the stage where the clinical data is already collected and the plant is already standing.
And the caution that belongs in any CAR T story: this is a field that has collapsed before. Phase 2 shows an effect, Phase 3 washes it out, and the manufacturing plant ends up as an expensive monument to earlier confidence. BioOra is betting that automation genuinely lowers the cost of CAR T production. That bet gets tested at the regulatory filing.