Bob Langer-found­ed cell ther­a­py play­er loads up $65M to fund Roche-part­nered can­cer work while ex­pand­ing in­to vac­cines for in­fec­tious dis­eases

SQZ Biotech isn’t plan­ning to test any­thing against Covid-19 for now. But when the next pan­dem­ic strikes, CEO Ar­mon Sharei wants its cell ther­a­py plat­form — which is es­sen­tial­ly al­so a vac­cine plat­form — to be ready for plug-and-play.

The ex­pan­sion in­to in­fec­tious dis­eases is one of many things the Wa­ter­town, MA-based com­pa­ny plans to ac­com­plish with its lat­est $65 mil­lion Se­ries D.

Vi­ral and bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions, both the chron­ic kind and the ones that can pose a sud­den, glob­al threat, had been on his radar since his PhD days at Bob Langer’s MIT lab, Sharei told End­points News. Now that they have pushed the first im­ple­men­ta­tion of their cell en­gi­neer­ing tech­nique in­to the clin­ic and fig­ured out the man­u­fac­tur­ing set­up — in the form of an on­col­o­gy pro­gram part­nered with Roche — with an­oth­er lined up for lat­er this year, the time is ripe for some prepa­ra­tion for an IND fil­ing in 2021.

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