ImmunoScape Raises $14M to Facilitate the Discovery and Characterization of Cancer-Specific T-cell Receptors
ImmunoScape Raises $14M to Facilitate the Discovery and Characterization of Cancer-Specific T-cell Receptors
- Anzu Partners led the $14M financing round with participation from Amgen Ventures and EDBI
- ImmunoScape’s Deep Immunomics and machine learning platforms comprise a highly effective method for the discovery of T-cell receptor (TCR) candidates, targeting novel antigens such as cancer-specific shared splice variants and human endogenous retroviral elements
- The company is poised to take a set of its proprietary TCRs into the clinic as TCR-T-cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors
San Diego, California and Singapore – September 20, 2022 – ImmunoScape, a pre-clinical biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of next-generation TCR-T-cell therapeutics today announced that it has raised $14M in new financing. Existing investor Anzu Partners led the round with participation from new investor Amgen Ventures and Singapore-based global investor EDBI.
ImmunoScape’s differentiated Deep Immunomics platform utilizes the company’s proprietary combinatorial barcoding technology to enable the discovery and in-depth characterization of rare cancer-specific T-cells at high resolution. ImmunoScape’s platform is able to simultaneously evaluate tens of millions of T-cells in blood samples from hundreds of cancer patients to identify rare clinically relevant T-cell clones. The corresponding TCRs are then evaluated and prioritized to build a diverse portfolio of TCR-T-cell therapies.
By leveraging computational biology and machine learning, together with high throughput screening and evaluation of T-cell clones, ImmunoScape is able to efficiently identify novel T-cell therapy targets and TCR candidates. ImmunoScape has extensively validated its computational platform using virus-specific T-cells and is applying the same methods to build an extensive portfolio of cancer-specific TCRs.
“We have made significant strides in our discovery program and have identified several compelling clinical TCR candidates using our Deep Immunomics platform,” said Choon Peng Ng, CEO, ImmunoScape. “The new funding will allow us to expedite our development efforts and help us to advance our therapeutic candidates toward the clinic. We are especially delighted that Amgen Ventures has become an investor and we look forward to working with their team to address important unmet medical needs with ImmunoScape’s technology.”
“Amgen invests in promising new solutions to address healthcare’s biggest challenges, especially those that offer unique, value-based approaches that align with our mission to serve patients fighting serious illness,” said Philip Tagari, vice president of research (therapeutic discovery), Amgen. “ImmunoScape’s Deep Immunomics and machine learning platforms have the potential to help uncover new treatments as we continue to develop the next generation of innovative medicines. We are excited to work with their team to unlock the full power of this technology.”
“With research laboratories in both San Diego and Singapore, ImmunoScape is one of the global pioneers of TCR discovery. Their unique high-throughput TCR discovery and evaluation platform has an unprecedented capacity to test millions of human T-cells against hundreds of cancer antigens,” said David Michael, managing partner at Anzu Partners. “From their origins at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*Star), the company’s global team of immunologists are pursuing major breakthroughs in TCR cell therapy. We are delighted to work more closely with Amgen on these important efforts.”
To learn more about ImmunoScape, please visit https://immunoscape.com/.
