Affini-T: engineering T cells to target oncogenic drivers in solid tumors
With $175M in the bank, Fred Hutch spinout is adding synthetic biology switches to T cells to increase their tumor infiltration and persistence
With $175 million in funding co-led by Vida Venture and Leaps by Bayer, Affini-T is targeting oncogenic and viral driver mutations with CD4+ and CD8+ T cells engineered to express TCRs and synthetic biology switches that enhance proliferation, persistence and killing activity.
The company is led by Leaps by Bayer veteran Jak Knowles, who is co-founder, president and CEO. The former VP of venture investments at the investment unit of Bayer AG (Xetra:BAYN) has been on the board of many of Leaps’ life sciences companies, including Pyxis Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:PYXS), Century Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:IPSC), Vesigen Therapeutics Inc., Triumvira Immunologics Inc. and Metagenomi Inc. He was also CBO at Metagenomi from November 2020 to December 2021...