T-Knife, a Germany-based developer of T-cell receptor therapeutics backed by pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, has raised $110m in a series B round led by investment and financial services group Fidelity Management & Research Company.
The round was filled out by sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, Life Science Partners, Casdin Capital, Sixty Degree Capital, CaaS Capital, RA Capital Management, Versant Ventures and Andera Partners.
Founded in 2018 as a spinout of Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), T-Knife develops T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies for the treatment of solid tumours.
The company uses a proprietary transgenic mouse platform that produces human TCRs able to mimic the properties of virus-specific TCRs, avoiding immunological tolerance to self tumour antigens.
T-Knife’s lead programme, TK-8001, targets gastrointestinal, pulmonary, gynaecological and urogenital solid tumours. The company plans to begin enrolling patients for its TK-8001 Phase 1/2 clinical study in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The funding will be used to increase T-Knife’s manufacturing capacity, advance its pipeline of T-cell receptor therapies and expand its scientific team.
In connection with the round, Karin Kleinhans, partner at Life Science Partners, will join T-Knife’s board.
The company collected $77.6m in an August 2020 series A round from investors including Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the corporate venturing arm of Boehringer Ingelheim. The round was co-led by Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management and also featured Andera Partners.
T-Knife had previously raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding in a round arranged by Ascenion, the technology transfer office for MDC and Charité University Hospital. BIVF and Andera Partners are understood to have contributed to this initial capital injection.