ArsenalBio is making its debut today backed by $85 million Series A funding to build a programmable cell therapy company to create highly effective and accessible immune cell therapy. The company will integrate technologies such as CRISPR-based genome engineering, scaled and high throughput target identification, synthetic biology, and machine learning to advance a new paradigm for the discovery and development of immune cell therapy, initially for cancer. ArsenalBio’s foundation is based on the contributions of scientific leaders from a consortium of academic medical and research institutions.
Investors include Westlake Village BioPartners, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), Kleiner Perkins, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Investment Company, Euclidean Capital, and Osage Venture Partners.
“Our goal is to address the unmet needs and suffering of cancer patients and ultimately other diseases by developing and advancing a new paradigm of human immune cell therapy design and treatment,” said Ken Drazan, MD, Founding Chief Executive Officer of ArsenalBio. “The Integrated Technology Approach we are embarking on will create a new arsenal of tools and medicines for researchers, patients and their physicians to reduce cancer morbidity and mortality. “That’s right.
Today’s commercialized first-generation T cell therapies are designed and manufactured with the aim of inserting into T cells a single cell-targeting transgene, a chimeric antigen receptor, or a new T cell receptor via viral delivery. ArsenalBio seeks to advance this process exponentially by inserting precisely, without viral vectors, significantly larger DNA payloads, designed with proprietary tools, and encoding a broader set of biological “software” instructions to allow immune cells to effectively target and destroy solid organ and hematological cancers. ArsenalBio’s approach will move beyond the current model of tumor-targeting strategies to enable the rewiring of immune cell circuitry by computer-driven design. The company aims to develop critical success metrics for immune cell therapy, including enhanced and broader efficacy, increased patient safety, reduced costs for providers, and increased market access.
“The technology being developed by ArsenalBio represents a significant advance in how cancer can be treated. Experience leaders such as Jane Grogan, Michael Kalos and Tarjei Mikkelsen bring together Dr. Drazan’s results-oriented management approach will help to rapidly advance this transformational platform to benefit patients,” said Beth Seidenberg, MD, co-founder Managing Director of Westlake Village BioPartners, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm focused on incubating and building life sciences companies.
“ArsenalBio uses a variety of approaches to gene editing, target selection, cell circuit engineering, and computing to reimagine dosing, delivery, persistence, and affordability of cell therapy. The Pharma, Science and Talent Relations Networks of PICI, Westlake and Kleiner Perkins are a boost to ArsenalBio’s remarkable research and development team,” said Brook Byers, Founding Partner of Kleiner Perkins of Menlo Park, CA.
“ArsenalBio allows us to rewrite vast areas of code to give T cells dramatic new functions-that means they can be made more effective in killing cancer and a wide range of other diseases,” said Sean Parker, founder and chairman of PICI. “It is also very rewarding to see ArsenalBio born out of the deep collaboration of PICI researchers—-who have worked together across research centers, hospitals and universities on the science behind these technologies. The very existence of the company demonstrates how much faster and better we can get therapies from bench to bed when we work together and put patients first. “That’s right.
Around ArsenalBio
ArsenalBio is building a programmable cell therapy company to create highly effective and accessible immune cell therapy that will have an impact on a much larger number of patients, initially cancer patients. Founded in 2019, ArsenalBio focuses on the integration of technologies such as CRISPR-based genome engineering, scaled and high throughput target identification, synthetic biology and machine learning to advance a new paradigm for the discovery and development of immune cell therapy. With its programmable and computationally driven approach, ArsenalBio aims to develop critical success metrics for immune cell therapy, including enhanced and broader efficacy, increased patient safety, reduced provider costs and increased market access. Visit the www site arsenalbio, please Come to learn more
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