Shoreline Biosciences’ work to develop “off-the-shelf” cell therapies for cancer has led to strategic partnerships with BeiGene and Gilead Sciences.Now these pharmaceutical companies are joining a USD 140 million investment In the field of biotechnology, the company will use the funds for the manufacturing and preclinical development of cellular immunotherapy.
The financing announced on Tuesday was an announcement on Shoreline US$43 million in Series A financing Of funds. The company said that these investments plus payments from partners have provided the biotech company with more than $300 million in funding to support its immunotherapy research and development.
Shoreline in San Diego is part of a new wave of companies developing cell therapies using natural killer (NK) cells, a type of immune cell that can kill tumors. NK cell therapy may represent an advancement in the first generation of cell therapy, which is made by the patient’s own T cells in a long, multi-step process. The personalized nature of this CAR-T therapy makes the manufacturing process difficult to scale. The advantage of off-the-shelf therapies is that they can be made and stored in advance, which makes them readily available when the patient needs treatment.
Shoreline designs its NK cell therapy from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which can become any type of human cell. The company said that its technology can design iPSC-derived NK cells to have the characteristics of making these cells better against cancer. For example, the company claims that its technology can precisely reprogram NK cells so that they last longer and become more powerful cancer fighters. The company’s platform can also be used to develop macrophages, which are a different type of immune cell that can also be used to treat cancer.
In June, Shoreline announced a partnership with Beijing-based BeiGene and Gilead’s subsidiary Kite.this BeiGene Trading Shoreline paid USD 45 million in advance to start the development of NK cell therapies for four undisclosed treatment targets. When the transaction was announced, the two companies stated that BeiGene could choose to acquire Shoreline’s equity in the next round of financing.
this Kite trading Focus on using Shoreline technology to develop chimeric antigen receptor NK targets, with the option to expand to include macrophage procedures for undisclosed targets, which will be selected later. The amount of the advance payment was not disclosed. Kite participated in Shoreline’s Series A earlier this year.
With the new cash, Shoreline said it will continue to develop the iPSC platform to produce NK cell and macrophage-based therapies. The company did not disclose which cancers it aims to treat, only that it is developing immunotherapies for solid tumors and blood cancers. Solving solid tumors will be a major advancement in CAR-T therapy. So far, CAR-T therapy has been proven to be effective only for blood cancer. Demonstrating better safety will provide NK cell therapy with another advantage over CAR T, which has the risk of triggering dangerous immune responses and neurotoxicity.
The field of biotechnology pursuing NK cell therapy is growing, and some companies have entered the clinic. Similar to Shoreline, Fate Therapeutics is developing iPSC therapy.In August, Fate reported Preliminary data for the first stage NK cell therapy for B-cell lymphoma. At the same time, Wugen has developed its therapeutic candidates, including NK cell therapy and CAR T therapy, by purchasing cells from healthy donors and transforming these cells. The company’s leading NK cell therapy is currently undergoing phase 1/2 trials in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. In July, Wugen completes US$172 million in financing to support its cell therapy research.
Other biotechnologies have also emerged in the past year. Artiva Biosciences, Launched last year, To develop therapies using NK cells from the cord blood of healthy donors. Modulus Therapeutics, a branch of the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence, began to become invisible this summer And revealed its AI method for developing NK cell therapy.
Shorelines’ latest round of financing was led by Ally Bridge Group. With regard to this financing, Frank Yu, Ally’s founder, CEO and CIO, joined the Shoreline board of directors. The financing added new investors BeiGene, Eventide Asset Management, Irving Investors, NS Investment, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital and Superstring. Earlier investors Boxer Capital, BVF Partners, LP, Commodore Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Kite, Stork Capital and Wedbush Healthcare Partners also participated in this round of financing.
Public area picture Acute myeloid leukemia from the National Cancer Institute
