Fundraise led by Sofinnova Partners, F-Prime Capital, Digitalis Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital with participation from Sanofi Ventures and the University of Cambridge Venture Fund
Unique transgenic mouse platform harnesses natural power of T cells to build a portfolio of first-in-class cancer medicines
15 November 2023; Cambridge, England – T-Therapeutics (“the Company”), a biotechnology company developing next-generation TCR therapeutics designed to reshape the clinical landscape for cancer patients, today announces it has raised £48 million ($59 million) in a Series A financing led by Sofinnova Partners, F-Prime Capital, Digitalis Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) with participation from Sanofi Ventures and the University of Cambridge Venture Fund. The proceeds will be used to discover and develop novel T cell receptor (TCR) therapeutics for cancer indications as well as inflammatory disorders. Concurrent with the financing, Graziano Seghezzi (Sofinnova Partners), Nihal Sinha (F-Prime), Samuel Bjork (Digitalis) and Robert Tansley (CIC) have joined the Company’s Board of Directors.
T-Therapeutics, which was spun out of the University of Cambridge, has developed a proprietary transgenic mouse platform, OpTiMus®, which creates an almost unlimited repertoire of ‘optimal’ TCRs as building blocks for pioneering therapies.
Initially, these treatments are being designed to recognise specific cancers and recruit the patient’s own T cells to eradicate the tumour. T-Therapeutics is building a portfolio of transformational TCR-based medicines for cancer, addressing the limitations of current TCR therapies which only apply to certain cancers and lack specificity, leading to significant side effects. T-Therapeutics will also develop medicines which address various auto-immune disorders.
The team at T-Therapeutics includes highly experienced antibody engineers and drug developers who were responsible for the creation of the Kymab and PetMedix antibody discovery platforms and pipelines among other notable discoveries, including at Adaptimmune and GSK. Of note, Kymab was acquired by Sanofi in 2021 for $1.45 billion and PetMedix was acquired by Zoetis, the world’s largest animal health company, in September this year.