T-Knife, a Germany-based developer of T-cell receptor therapeutics, has received €66m ($77.6m) in series A funding from investors including Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the investment arm of pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim.
The round was co-led by Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management and was also backed by Andera Partners.
Founded in 2018, T-Knife is working on cancer drugs based on T-cell receptors (TCRs) made using mice that have been reengineered to contain biological material that resembles the location of human gene TCRαβ.
T-Knife’s platform was designed to locate high-affinity TCRs within organisms that resemble the human leukocyte antigen, which is linked to a strong anti-cancer response.
Proceeds from the series A round will help the company advance at least four TCR programmes into the clinic while it builds out its preclinical and discovery-stage pipeline. It also plans to expand its management as it looks to establish a US presence.
Frank Kalkbrenner, managing director of BIVF, will join T-Knife’s board of directors along with representatives of RA Capital Management, Versant Ventures and Andera Partners.
T-Knife had previously secured an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding in a round arranged by Ascenion, the technology transfer office for Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and Charité University Hospital. BIVF and Andera Partners were named as seed investors in the latest round.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.