BrainChild Bio secured $116 million in venture financing to support a pivotal development program for pediatric brain tumor CAR-T therapy. The company’s BCB-276 targets B7-H3 (CD276) for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and is designed to be administered after standard-of-care focal radiation therapy without chemotherapy conditioning. BrainChild said the first patient has been dosed in its registrational Phase II ILLUMINATE trial, a single-arm study evaluating efficacy with overall survival as the primary endpoint. The trial is intended to accelerate the company’s path toward a biologics license application and includes secondary measures such as safety/tolerability, radiographic response, presence of BCB-276 in cerebrospinal fluid, and progression-free survival. The financing underscores continued demand for differentiated cell therapy strategies in hard-to-treat pediatric indications, where development timelines and enrollment constraints are substantial. For BrainChild, additional funds support manufacturing and regulatory operations while activating sites across major pediatric neuro-oncology centers in the United States.