New cell ther­a­py play­er launch­es with $57M from mar­quee in­vestors to go af­ter 'de­fin­i­tive' tu­mor tar­gets

A crew of Am­gen and Kite vets is pub­licly throw­ing their new start­up in­to the cell ther­a­py hat — though they are say­ing lit­tle out­side of the ba­sics and $57 mil­lion in Se­ries A cash.

The Col­umn Group, Vi­da Ven­tures, Sam­sara Bio­Cap­i­tal and Nex­tech In­vest are back­ing A2 Bio­ther­a­peu­tics’ quest to find new ways of en­gag­ing im­mune cells in se­lec­tive­ly at­tack­ing can­cer. To do so, the biotech is work­ing with two tar­get class­es: pep­tide MHC tar­gets and tar­gets that are “ir­re­versibly lost in tu­mor cells.” The for­mer builds on an in­creas­ing­ly pop­u­lar strat­e­gy of lo­cat­ing neoanti­gens for T cells to home in on, while the lat­ter is in­spired by a mech­a­nism used by nat­ur­al killer cells.

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