UK biotechs T-Therapeutics and Alethio score big financings
Two up-and-coming UK biotechs – T-Therapeutics and Alethio Therapeutics – have raised $133 million and $90 million, respectively, in an impressive pair of private financing rounds.
Cambridge startup T-Therapeutics raked in its cash in a Series B financing, co-led by new investors Advent Life Sciences and British Business Bank, that will be used to progress two T cell receptor (TCR) therapeutics for cancer and autoimmune diseases. It comes a year after T-Therapeutics raised $91 million in an extended first round.
The two TCR programmes – both based on T-Therapeutics' OpTiMus platform – are still in early-stage development, and the funding will be used to advance them into human testing. OpTiMus generates fully human TCRs targeting a disease-associated molecule on cells, combined with a CD3-binding domain that can direct an immune response against them.
Its two lead programmes are TTX-008, in preclinical development and being developed for several types of cancer, and TTX-018 for autoimmune conditions, which remains in the discovery phase. The new funding will be enough to take both T-cell engagers through clinical proof-of-...