T-Knife has emerged from stealth with $77.6m in series A funding to advance four potential cancer treatments into the clinic and open a US office.
T-Knife, a Germany-based T-cell receptor therapeutics spinout of Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), has raised €66m ($77.6m) in a series A round co-led by Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management.
Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the corporate venturing unit for pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim, and Andera Partners also took part in the round, which remains subject to regulatory clearance.
Founded in 2018, T-Knife is working on cancer drugs based on T-cell receptors (TCRs) made using mice that have been re-engineered to contain biological material resembling the location of the human gene TCRαβ.
T-Knife’s platform is billed as being able to find high-affinity TCRs within organisms that resemble the human leukocyte antigen – linked to a strong anti-cancer response.
Proceeds from the series A round will go to bringing at least four TCR programs into the clinic while also building out its preclinical and discovery-stage pipeline. The company also plans to expand its management, with the aim of forming a US presence.
Frank Kalkbrenner, managing director of BIVF, will join T-Knife’s board of directors along with representatives of RA Capital Management, Versant Ventures and Andera Partners.
The company previously secured an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding in a round arranged by Ascenion, the tech transfer office for MDC and Charité University Hospital, to which the spinout also has connections.
BIVF and Andera Partners were revealed as seed investors, though further details have not been disclosed.
