Link Cell Therapies Emerges from Stealth with $60M Series A to Advance Logic-Gated CAR-T Platform
核心洞察
Link Cell Therapies (搜索) officially launched from stealth mode with a $60 million Series A financing led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, bringing total funding to $92 million across seed and Series A rounds.
The company's proprietary logic-gating technology enables CAR-T cells to target multiple antigens co-expressed on cancer (搜索) cells while sparing healthy tissues that express only one target.
Lead program LNK001 for renal cell carcinoma (搜索) is on track for IND application and Phase I trial initiation in 2026, with a second colorectal cancer (搜索) program targeting development candidate selection in 2026.
Link Cell Therapies (搜索) officially emerged from stealth mode with a $60 million Series A financing round led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., marking a significant milestone for the oncology cell therapy company's mission to advance CAR-T therapies in both solid and liquid tumors (搜索). The financing brings the company's total funding to $92 million across seed and Series A rounds.
The Series A round included participation from founding investors Samsara BioCapital (搜索) and Sheatree Capital, alongside new strategic and financial investors including Bristol Myers Squibb (搜索), Kyowa Kirin, Wing Venture Capital, and Sherpa Healthcare Partners. This follows a 2022 seed round that was led by Samsara and Sheatree.
Addressing CAR-T Therapy Limitations Through Logic-Gating Technology
Link's proprietary logic-gating technologies represent a novel approach to overcoming one of the most significant challenges in CAR-T therapy development. The platform allows for safe targeting of multiple antigens that are co-expressed on cancer (搜索) cells but do not overlap or only minimally overlap in their normal healthy tissue expression.
"We recognized that for most cancer (搜索) types, particularly solid tumors (搜索), the promise of CAR-T therapies is limited by a dearth of cancer-specific targets and abundant expression of most solid tumor targets in normal vital tissue," said Co-Founder Robbie Majzner, MD of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.
The technology, originally developed at Stanford University, enables the creation of CAR-T cells that activate and kill target cells only when a combination of antigens is co-localized on the tumor. This approach bypasses normal tissues that express only one of those targets, potentially enabling potent CAR-T therapies to attack a wide range of tumors while sparing healthy tissue.
Clinical Pipeline and Development Timeline
Link's lead program, LNK001, targets renal cell carcinoma (搜索) (RCC) and is designed to address two antigens that are uniquely and highly co-expressed in most RCC tumors. The program is positioned to enable tumor-specific efficacy while avoiding on-target, off-tumor toxicity that has limited prior experimental therapies targeting each individual antigen. LNK001 is on track for an Investigational New Drug (IND) application and initiation of dosing in a Phase I clinical trial in 2026.
The company's second program, being developed for colorectal cancer (搜索), will target Development Candidate selection in 2026 with initiation of human clinical studies planned for 2027. Link has multiple additional CAR-T programs in earlier development stages targeting both solid and liquid cancers, which will be developed internally or through partnerships.
Strategic Investor Support and Company Foundation
Founded in 2022 by Robbie Majzner, MD and Crystal Mackall, MD at Stanford University, Link Cell Therapies (搜索) is based in South San Francisco, California. The company's approach creates an entirely new landscape of "clean" target pairs for next-generation CAR-T therapeutics.
"It has been a pleasure to support Link Cell Therapies (搜索) since its founding," said Abraham Bassan, Member of the Link Board of Directors and Partner at Samsara BioCapital (搜索). "The team at Link has advanced a unique technology that could enable the development of multiple, impactful treatments for patients with cancer (搜索). I have been impressed with the team's achievements and the progress on Link's lead program and pipeline."
The company's platform technology addresses a fundamental challenge in extending CAR-T therapy success from hematologic malignancies to solid tumors (搜索), where target selection has been complicated by the expression of potential targets in normal vital tissues. By requiring co-localization of multiple antigens for activation, Link's logic-gated approach aims to expand the therapeutic window for CAR-T therapies across a broader range of cancer (搜索) types.