February 11, 2021 -- Notch Therapeutics has closed $85 million in series A financing to continue the development of its portfolio of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapies for cancer, as well as its proprietary engineered Thymic Niche platform.
The financing will also enable Notch to expand its team to support the company's future growth, including establishing operations in Seattle, in addition to the company's existing operations in Vancouver and Toronto.
The company's engineered Thymic Niche technology is used to develop homogenous and universally compatible stem cell-derived cell therapies. The technology allows for the generation and editing of immune cells from clonal stem cells to produce a broad range of T-cell therapies. This is achieved through precision control of cell fate during the differentiation and expansion of stem cells in suspension bioreactors without the need for feeder cells or serum.
Notch has an existing partnership with Allogene Therapeutics to apply the engineered Thymic Niche platform to develop chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-targeted, iPSC-derived, off-the-shelf T cell or natural killer (NK) cell therapies for hematologic cancer indications.