Peter Thiel and Sean Parker of PayPal Are Backing A Stealth Start-Up
PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Facebook investor Sean Parker are investing in a new, secretive I-O biotech. The start-up, 3T Biosciences has raised more than $12 million in a massive seed round led by the two.
Little is known about 3T Biosciences, it is said to be led by cancer biology PhD student and investor, Asset Management Ventures’ principal Luke Lee, as well as a group of academics from Christopher Garcia’s biology lab at Stanford.
It’s not unusual to keep biotechs under wraps until they get through their seed phase, looking to establish a clear clinical path before they leap into public view. Thiel, meanwhile, has a well known appetite for the drug development world, once fielding candidates for the FDA’s top job after backing Donald Trump for the presidency.
3T Biosciences is in the T-cell treatment space, reports say, implying that it is among a developing group of new companies attempting to reinforce the body’s own particular immune system to battle cancer tumors and stop the spread of disease. That is an unexpected approach in comparison to conventional medications like chemotherapy, which kills both cancerous and healthy cells.
Recently, RepImmune
elevated $55 million inside a Series B round for immunotherapy targeting multiple solid tumor types. Its treatment, RP1, is supposed to activate innate and adaptive immune responses. Another biotech, Gritstone Oncology, that is developing neoantigen-targeted immunotherapies for lung and gastric cancer, elevated greater than $92 million and in a Series B round. It’s likely to start numerous studies the coming year. RepImmune is applying the funding for proof-of-concept studies.Merck inked a $200 million licensing agreement with Moderna Therapeutics this past year. The aim would be to identify unique mutations inside a given cancer, as a first step for cancer vaccine development for a specific immune response.
