Simcha pressure-testing engineered IL-18 with $40 million series B

Having dosed its first patient, Simcha Therapeutics believes it has raised enough funding to take its decoy-resistant IL-18 candidate through Phase II testing. The company is starting in the monotherapy setting for checkpoint inhibitor-resistant solid tumors, a challenging indication it thinks will benefit from the engineered cytokine’s broad immune activity.

“We definitely want to set the bar high, because the mechanism of action is so differentiated,” said Aaron Ring, founder of Simcha Therapeutics Holding Co. LLC and assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine...