Kendall Square Upstart Cue BioPharma Comes Out of Stealth Mode With $26 Million

Kendall Square Upstart Cue BioPharma Comes Out of Stealth Mode With $26 Million January 24, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Cue Biopharma came out of stealth mode with the announcement of $26 million of invested private capital. The investment was led by MDB Capital Group. The company was founded in 2015 with $10 million of seed funding, with $16.4 million in follow-on financing.

Cue is focused on second-generation immuno-oncology. Its technology platform is designed to fuse engineered T-cell costimulatory signaling molecules (ligands) with a T-cell receptor targeting complex (peptide-MHC) on a traditional scaffold of an antibody.

“It has become increasingly clear that more effective and less toxic approaches to immune modulation are needed via precise communication with and control of T cells,” said Daniel Passeri, president and chief executive officer of Cue, in a statement. “With the Cue platform, we have demonstrated selectivity for and modulation of disease-relevant T cells. Our lead candidate has exhibited significant potential in preclinical cancer models and has shown impressive synergy when combined with checkpoint inhibitors. Our approach to modulating the immune system to treat disease could have great clinical benefit for patients, while reducing collateral toxicities often seen with less selective immunotherapies.”

Ron Seidel and RodolfoRudyChaparro, the technical founders of the company, are researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. They considered locating the company in New York, but chose Cambridge because of its proximity to biotech startups and venture capital.

“We believe that this is the epicenter of the biotech world,” Seidel told John Carroll with Endpoints News.

The development platform was in development for five years with assistance from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Cue also announced its management team. Daniel Passeri will be president and chief executive officer. Passeri was previously president and chief executive officer and vice chairman of Curis. Ronald Seidel is executive vice president, Head of Research and Development. Rodolfo Chaparro is executive vice president, Head of Immunology.

The company’s independent board of directors include Peter Klener, former executive vice president and Global Head of Biologics at MedImmune /AstraZeneca , and currently chief scientific officer at Sucampo ; Barry Simon, president and chief operating officer of NantKwest; and Steven McKnight, a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center and co-founder of San Francisco-based Tularik, and founder of Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics.

The company’s Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board includes Steven Almo, Hidde Ploegh, and David Baker. Almo is known for high resolution structural and biochemical characterization of the CTLA-4 and PD-1 immune checkpoint proteins. Ploegh is a member of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Baker is a professor of Chemistry, Director of the Institute for Protein Design, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and adjunct professor of Genome Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics at the University of Washington.

Passeri, Carroll writes, “tells me, it’s like doing what you want to do with a CAR-T, but through a molecule rather than an ex vivo engineering process. This is second-gen immunotherapeutic work, ideal for checkpoint collaborations, and the CEO expects to have the lead candidate for HPV selected soon, with plans to go into the clinic in H1 2018.”

The nascent company is also actively seeking partnerships.

Back to news