Dispatch seeks to address two main challenges of immunotherapies in solid tumors: the lack of a target and the immunosuppressive tumor environment.
Cancer startup Dispatch Bio launched on Wednesday with $216 million in starting funds and a mission to leverage CAR T therapies as a universal treatment for solid tumors.
“Immunotherapies have struggled to effectively treat solid tumors due to two main challenges,” the biotech argued in its news release. First is having no tumor-specific target to seek out and second is the strongly immunosuppressive environment surrounding the tumors.
Dispatch’s answer to both of these problems is its proprietary Flare platform, named after the universal antigen that it uses. The approach makes use of a viral vector that contains the Flare antigen, which targets and tags cells of the solid tumor while also eroding the tumor environment, in turn opening up access for the immune system, according to its website. Dispatch’s next-generation CAR T cells then can target and destroy the tagged cells, sparing healthy cells.
Of note, the company’s CAR T cells are specifically designed to persist in tumor tissues, allowing them to destroy enough cancer cells to have curative effect, the biotech claims. The Flare platform can work across many different types of solid tumors, which comprise 90% of cancers across the globe, according to Wednesday’s release.
Dispatch, which has offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco, was founded by life sciences–focused investor ARCH Venture Partners and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Bristol Myers Squibb, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and Alexandria Venture Investments also participated in the fundraising. Penn’s Carl June, a father of CAR T therapy, is a scientific co-founder.
Dispatch will use its capital to push its pipeline assets into first-in-human studies. The first clinical trial is expected to start in 2026.
With its launch on Wednesday, Dispatch joins the growing class of 2025 startups. Ahead of it is Draig Therapeutics, which took flight last month and will use it $140 million Series A capital to develop new neuropsychiatric therapies. And in April, Granite Bio debuted with $100 million and the support of several big backers, including Novartis, Sanofi and Versant Ventures, to develop antibody assets for inflammatory and autoimmune indications. Also in April, Flagship Pioneering-founded Etiome exited stealth with $50 million to leverage an AI-powered platform to target diseases before their symptoms appear.
