Tallac Therapeutics, Inc., a San Francisco-based privately-held biopharmaceutical company harnessing the potential of innate and adaptive immunity to fight cancer, announced on 1st December 2020, the completion of its Series A financing adding to US$ 62 million. The company is supported by a board of leading global life science venture firms including venBio Partners, Morningside Venture, Lightstone Ventures, Matrix Partners China and MRL Ventures Fund.
The startup aims to use the fresh capital to advance the discovery and development of immunotherapy candidates for multiple solid tumour malignancies. Its pipeline of next-generation immunotherapies is obtained from its novel Toll-like Receptor Agonist Antibody Conjugate (TRAAC) platform.
Immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors and adoptive CAR-T therapies have become foundational treatment choices in oncology, but still, the majority of patients only receive a brief benefit or no benefit as they either develop resistance to treatment or are non-responsive to treatment.
Novel immunotherapies recognised as Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists are a class of immunotherapy that generates both an innate and adaptive immune response which may produce further robust and durable anti-cancer immunity to help in overcoming resistance.
What the founders have to say
“We believe targeting innate immunity represents a transformative approach to creating the next generation of breakthrough therapeutics in cancer immunotherapy,” said Dr Hong I. Wan, president, CEO and co-founder of Tallac Therapeutics.
“Our team has generated robust preclinical data on the Toll-like Receptor Agonist Antibody Conjugate (TRAAC) platform that we recently presented at the 2020 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) annual meeting. With the support of our existing and new investors, I am excited to lead the Tallac team on its mission to advance first-in-class therapies for the benefit of patients in desperate need of new treatment options,” he also added.
“Tallac has developed a scientifically innovative technology platform to create potent, systemically delivered therapeutics with the potential to provide powerful innate and adaptive anti-tumour immunity across multiple tumour types,” said Corey Goodman, board chair, co-founder of Tallac Therapeutics and Managing Partner at venBio.
“We are pleased to see the progress made by the team during the seed stage and look forward to supporting Tallac as they advance their pipeline towards the clinic,” he also added.
About Tallac Therapeutics
Founded in 2018 by Dr Goodman and Dr Wan (previously CSO of ALX Oncology) with two other co-founders, Dr Jaume Pons (currently CEO of ALX Oncology) and Dr Curt Bradshaw (most recently CSO at Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals), the company was formed to develop technology for targeted immune activation using an antibody-immune activator conjugate.
The research team at Tallac has vital biologics discovery and development expertise and recently, under Dr Wan’s leadership at ALX Oncology, the team devised and advanced ALX148, a best-in-class myeloid checkpoint inhibitor, for multiple tumour indications.
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[…] Tallac raises $62M in Series A to advance novel cancer immunotherapies […]