T-knife Closes Series A Round to Develop CAR-T Solid Tumor Therapies

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Germany’s T-knife Raises $78.4 Million to Develop CAR-T Solid Tumor Therapies

 

T-knife GmbH, based in Berlin, Germany, closed a €66 million (about $78.4 million, U.S.) Series A round. The round was led by Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management. Existing investors Andera Partners and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) also participated.

T-knife focuses on next-generation T-cell therapies leveraging its proprietary humanized T-cell receptor (HuTCR) mouse platform to develop treatments for solid tumors. It spun out of Max-Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine with support of Charité University Hospital in Berlin in 2018.

“Having worked in stealth mode to create a powerful humanized mouse platform bearing the human TCR loci, it is especially gratifying to now receive the validation from esteemed healthcare dedicated funds like Versant Ventures and RA Capital,” said Elisa Kieback, chief executive officer and scientific co-founder of T-knife. “We are equally grateful for the continued support of our founding shareholders, Andera Partners and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, two top-tier healthcare investors who have been our true partners since inception. Going forward, our goal is to become a transatlantic company by establishing a U.S. presence and expanding our management team accordingly.”

The company’s HuTCR mouse expresses only TCRs that are restricted to human HLA (human leukocyte antigens). The immune system uses HLA to recognize which cells belong to your body and which ones do not. The TCRs developed through HuTCR mice are highly specific and have high affinity. As a result, T-knife has created a pipeline of patented, unique TCR candidates to take into the clinic. It also hopes to license out the mice to other companies.

T-knife indicates it plans to use the funds raised to advance at least four programs into the clinic, accelerate its preclinical development for more pipeline candidates and to find more TCRs against novel targets.

T-knife spun out of the academic setting and Kieback worked with Thomas Blankenstein, also a co-founder of T-knife, who developed the mice models in the early 2000.

The company’s lead product targets MAGE-A1, an HLA that is part of a family of cancer/testis antigens, in multiple myeloma patients. MAGE-A1 is normally expressed as testis in healthy tissues but can be abnormally activated in cancer cells.

Kieback indicates the funds raised provides the company with three years of runway, which should allow it to complete Phase I clinical trials for the lead candidate.

The company’s board of directors will now be made up of Josh Resnick from RA Capital, Alex Mayweg with Versant, Olivier Litzka with Andera Partners, Frank Kalkbrenner with BIVF, Blankenstein and Kieback.

“While CAR-T-based therapies have already demonstrated their power in the treatment of hematological cancers, their foray into solid tumors has proven to be less successful,” said Mayweg. “T-knife has developed an exciting technology as its TCR-T cell therapy targets tumor antigens in an MHC-restricted manner, allowing it to be one of the few platforms that is able to target solid tumors. We are consequently thrilled to co-lead this round with RA Capital, a preeminent healthcare dedicated fund, as their investment mandate mirrors our own mission to identify and support game-changing therapies with curative intent.”

 

BioSpace source:

https://www.biospace.com/article/germany-s-t-knife-closes-66-million-series-a