Boston, MA-based start­up Gen­tiBio land­ed a $20 mil­lion seed fund from three in­vestors to dive in­to en­gi­neered reg­u­la­to­ry T cell (En­gTreg) de­vel­op­ment.

Mar­quee in­vestors Or­biMed, No­var­tis Ven­ture Fund and RA Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment have backed Gen­tiBio’s mis­sion to de­vel­op En­gTregs for the treat­ment of au­toim­mune, al­loim­mune, au­toin­flam­ma­to­ry, and al­ler­gic dis­eases. Un­like oth­er com­pa­nies study­ing treat­ments us­ing a pa­tient’s own Tregs, Gen­tiBio plans to make use of CD4+ im­mune cells, found in the blood.

Gen­tiBio’s co-founders hail from the  Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Re­search In­sti­tute, Be­naroya Re­search In­sti­tute at Vir­ginia Ma­son (BRI), and MI­GAL Galilee Re­search In­sti­tute (MI­GAL). All three com­pa­nies are now part­ners, and Seat­tle Chil­dren’s has agreed to li­cense its tech­nol­o­gy ex­clu­sive­ly to Gen­tiBio.

Many com­pa­nies have eyed Treg cell ther­a­pies in the last decade, but the rar­i­ty and plas­tic­i­ty of en­doge­nous Treg cells pose a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge.

David Rawl­ings

“Tregs are rare cells with­in the im­mune sys­tem and cur­rent ther­a­pies that source Tregs cells from the blood stream can be cost­ly and cum­ber­some. In con­trast, Seat­tle Chil­dren’s unique tech­nol­o­gy en­ables the gen­er­a­tion of en­gi­neered reg­u­la­to­ry T cells, or En­gTregs, from the more abun­dant CD4+ cell pop­u­la­tion, ad­dress­ing a crit­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing short­com­ing for this nov­el treat­ment,” David Rawl­ings, Gen­tiBio co-founder and se­nior sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­sor and di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for Im­mu­ni­ty and Im­munother­a­pies at Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Re­search In­sti­tute, said in a state­ment.

Adel Na­da

Gen­tiBio co-founder and CEO Adel Na­da added in a state­ment: “Gen­tiBio is fo­cused on ad­dress­ing the tech­ni­cal bot­tle­necks that have throt­tled Treg ther­a­peu­tics, and we are thrilled to ex­clu­sive­ly in-li­cense a port­fo­lio of un­prece­dent­ed breadth from Seat­tle Chil­dren’s and Be­naroya Re­search In­sti­tute in the U.S. and MI­GAL Galilee Re­search In­sti­tute in Is­rael,””The tech­nolo­gies li­censed from these pre­mier re­search in­sti­tu­tions are ma­ture and well-dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed, and will be fur­ther op­ti­mized in spon­sored re­search col­lab­o­ra­tions with the sci­en­tif­ic teams that dis­cov­ered them to ad­vance nov­el and po­tent ther­a­peu­tics with the po­ten­tial to treat and cure se­ri­ous au­toim­mune and in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases.”

The fight against racial injustice spurred by a series of high-profile shootings of Black men by police earlier this year put Big Pharma and healthcare — industries targeted for their lack of diversity — in the hot seat. Eli Lilly made an early pledge to change its ways and put more back into the community, and now it’s continuing to make good on that commitment.

Lilly will infuse $30 million into the Unseen Capital Health Fund, a venture fund looking to invest in early-stage minority-owned healthcare companies that have been historically “unseen” by the investment community, the pharma said Friday.

The pace of innovation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in recent years has seen a wave of startups launch with IP or leadership sourced from the nonprofit’s ranks. Now, looking for its own returns on that success, Dana-Farber has launched a new venture fund to invest in those fledgling businesses.

On Thursday, Dana-Farber unveiled Binney Street Capital — its first-ever venture fund. Roche and Verily veteran Luba Greenwood has been tapped to lead the fund, which was named after the location of the institute’s Boston site.

Five Prime Therapeutics has finalized a plan to take their comeback gastric cancer drug into late-stage studies.

The South San Francisco-based biotech released full Phase II data for bemarituzumab on Friday, which Five Prime said in November met all of its pre-specified efficacy endpoints in a topline readout. Now, the company is announcing it plans to launch a Phase III trial for the program in 2021. Following November’s readout, the future of bemarituzumab had not yet been finalized.