Simcha shakes down $25m

Simcha Therapeutics, a US-based cancer therapeutics developer spun out of Yale University, has obtained $25m of series A funding from investors including pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec’s Corporate Venture Fund.
Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer also contributed funding, as did Connecticut Innovations, the strategic venturing arm of Connecticut state, and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital China.
Founded in 2018, Simcha Therapeutics engineers cytokine molecules as the basis for cancer immunotherapies intended to be more effective than existing treatments.
The company’s lead candidate, ST-067, administers a single-agent variant of interleukin-18 (IL-18), a cytokine protein thought to trigger natural killer cells and T-cells into destroying cancerous tumours.
While IL-18 could be effective, a decoy called IL-18BP typically blocks the route to its receptor, allowing tumours to evade confrontation.
Simcha believes it has identified a decoy-resistant form of IL-18, bringing into play inflammatory signals that temper tumour suppression of the immune system.
The approach, slated to commence initial clinical trials in early 2021, extends Yale University research led by Aaron Ring, assistant professor of immunobiology. Simcha now plans to recruit a full executive team in preparation for clinical development.
Ring said: “Cytokines represent a compelling therapeutic. The challenge is that nature did not design them to be anti-cancer therapies; they are signalling molecules, so their activity can be hard to specifically direct.”