BRIEF—GentiBio launches with $20 million in seed funding

GentiBio, a biopharma company developing engineered regulatory T cells that restrict inflammation in specific tissues, announced today the launch of the company with $20 million seed funding from OrbiMed, Novartis Venture Fund and RA Capital Management.

In addition, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Benarova Research Institute and MIGAL Galilee Research Institute will enter sponsored research collaborations with GentiBio and license technologies that enable GentiBio to address the shortcomings of current Treg therapeutics to treat autoimmune, alloimmune and autoinflammatory diseases.

Under the terms of the licensing agreements, Seattle Children’s, BRI and MIGAL will exclusively license unique technologies to GentiBio that overcome many of the current limitations of Tregs therapeutics, including rarity and plasticity of endogenous Tregs populations.

Additionally, GentiBio’s platform will enable the scaled production of robust EngTregs cell therapy products that are antigen specific and tunable.

The platform may also have the potential to accelerate the development of new therapeutics to treat and cure a variety of diseases, including autoimmune diseases that impact tens of millions of patients globally and 23 million people in the USA.