UK biotechs T-Therapeutics and Alethio score big financings

Two up-and-coming UK biotechs – T-Therapeutics and Alethio Therapeutics – have raised $133 million and $90 million, respectively, in an impressive pair of private financing rounds.

Cambridge start-up T-Therapeutics raked in its cash in a Series B financing, co-led by new investors Advent Life Sciences and British Business Bank, that will be used to progress two T-cell receptor (TCR) therapeutics for cancer and autoimmune diseases. It comes a year after T-Therapeutics raised $91 million in an extended first round.

The two TCR programmes – both based on T-Therapeutics' OpTiMus platform – are still in early-stage development, and the funding will be used to advance them into human testing. OpTiMus generates fully human TCRs targeting a disease-associated molecule on cells, combined with a CD3-binding domain that can direct an immune response against them.

Its two lead programmes are TTX-008, in preclinical development and being developed for several types of cancer, and TTX-018 for autoimmune conditions, which remains in the discovery phase. The new funding will be enough to take both T-cell engagers through clinical proof-of-concept testing, according to the company.

Chief executive Theodora Harold said the cash will allow T-Therapeutics to "accelerate the development of two oncology and immunology programmes with pan-indication, blockbuster potential, underpinned by a platform that reaches targets long considered undruggable."

New investors, including Johnson & Johnson's venture unit JJDC, Samsara BioCapital, M-Ventures, and Eli Lilly joined the round, along with all existing major shareholders – Sofinnova Partners, F-Prime, Digitalis Ventures, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Sanofi Ventures, Tencent, and BGF.

Meanwhile, Oxford-based Alethio has emerged with a Series A financing, co-led by Sofinnova Partners and RA Capital, and a mission to develop a new generation of therapies for myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Founding investor Oxford Science Enterprises joined the round, with support from Cancer Research Horizons and the University of Oxford.

In a statement, Alethio said the new funding would allow it to transition to a clinical-stage company, with a pipeline led by ATX-011, a G6B-targeting drug in preclinical development for essential thrombocythaemia (ET), the most common type of MPN. ET causes high levels of platelets to form in the blood, putting patients at risk of clotting complications and bleeding, and can also progress into myelofibrosis and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

G6B is a protein that is expressed only on MPN-initiating stem cells and is absent on normal stem cells, offering hope that it could become a targeted therapy for ET and other MPNs. Current treatments can reduce platelet levels, but their use is often compromised by tolerability issues.

"Too often, a patient's first encounter with ET is a thrombotic event that lands them in the emergency room," said Dr Rohit Batta, Alethio's CEO.

"What follows is typically lifelong treatment with therapies that can cause burdensome side effects and are associated with high rates of resistance," he added. "Alethio was founded on a simple conviction – if you can selectively eliminate the cells driving disease, you can redefine what is possible for patients."

The new financing will support development of ATX-011 through the completion of phase 1/2 testing and phase 3 readiness, according to the biotech.