Albert Einstein College of Medicine spinout Cue Biopharma has secured $26m in funding across two rounds led by investment bank MDB Capital Group.

US-based immunotherapy treatment developer Cue Biopharma, a spinout of medical school Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has raised $26m in funding led by technology-focused investment bank MDB Capital Group.

Cue is working on therapies that will treat cancer and autoimmune disease by modulating disease-relevant T cell subsets to control immune responses in patients. It will use the latest funding to advance its biologics work.

The round was broken down as $10m of seed funding in 2015, with $16.4m of follow-on capital in December 2016. The Cue platform was developed in Dr Steven Almo’s lab at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as part of a five-year grant from National Institutes of Health.

The grant enabled the team to develop an industry-scale drug design platform that could be used for rapid and efficient molecular prototyping and development.

Steven Almo, chair of the department of biochemistry and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and scientific founder of Cue, said: “The company has made impressive progress and I look forward to working closely with Cue as it brings its drug candidates into the clinic and advances its growing pipeline.”