Affini-T Therapeutics, a cell therapy company spun out of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that aims to treat solid tumors, raised $175 million in initial financing. Fred Hutch invested in the startup, the first time the Seattle institution has directly backed a company.
The tech: Affini-T is developing cancer treatments using a strategy called T cell receptor (TCR) cancer immunotherapy. The method involves engineering immune T cells to recognize tumor cells and infusing them into the patient. After recognizing the tumor cells, the engineered T cells mount a destructive immune response against them. “I believe we have a therapy now that really has a huge likelihood of being successful,” co-founder Philip Greenberg, Fred Hutch head of immunology, told GeekWire.
Go deeper: Affini-T’s TCR therapy recognizes cancer-promoting targets on the inside of cells. Its lead program targets a mutant version of KRAS often present in highly deadly cancers like colorectal and pancreatic cancer. The company did not comment on a timeline for development of the therapy, but it is also pursuing other targets. Building a TCR platform for several key cancer drivers was a major appeal for building the company, said Affini-T CEO and president Jak Knowles. “We realized quickly that there was an opportunity here to build something a lot bigger than one T cell receptor to KRAS,” he said.
