Outpace Bio, a Seattle startup using artificial intelligence to design proteins that are incorporated into cancer therapies targeting solid tumors, has raised $144 million in new cash from investors.
The fresh funding will allow Outpace researchers to test its treatment in a clinical setting. The goal is to benefit patients and validate the company’s approach to battling cancer.
A growing number of cancer treatments harness a type of immune system cell called a T cell to target and destroy cancerous cells. The strategy has been successful for blood cancers, but the solid tumors are better at deflecting the therapies, said Outpace co-founder and CEO Marc Lajoie.
So Outpace is modifying the T cells in multiple ways to improve their performance while limiting harmful side effects for patients.
“If you think of cancer as a game of Whack-a-Mole, you can’t just whack the first mole and win the game,” Lajoie told GeekWire. “You need to be able to whack each of the moles that comes up. And so you need multiple technologies in place to be resilient to all of those different mechanisms that the cancer can throw at you to turn off the activity of the drug.”
