GC Therapeutics (GCTx) has propelled itself into the cell therapy space with $65m under its belt to deliver off-the-shelf induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based medicines.
GCTx’s “plug and play” platform TFome – developed in the lab of Professor George Church at Harvard Medical School – transforms iPSCs into any cell type using a comprehensive collection of human transcription factors. By leveraging machine learning and advanced genome-scale testing, TFome can optimise transcription factor combinations.
The biotech secured $65m in a series A financing round led by Cormorant Asset Management with participation from Mubadala Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, among others. That brings GCTx’s total funds raised since its 2019 creation to $75m, according to the 19 September announcement.
Several other biotechs have dipped their toes into the iPSC space, which are derived from a person’s skin or blood cells. In August 2023, New York-based BlueRock Therapeutics signed a collaboration and option agreement with bit.bio to discover and manufacture iPSC-derived regulatory T cell-based therapies. bit.bio has its own opti-ox precision cell programming technology which is used for controlling the expression of transcription factor combinations within cell therapies.
However, according to GCTx, TFome is set to produce off-the-shelf cell therapies up to 100 times quicker than conventional methods. The biotech also claims it can enable single-step stem cell differentiation with over 90% efficiency in just four days. The company aims to use this platform to tackle diseases like those affecting the digestive system, brain, and immune system.
In the announcement accompanying the funding round, GCTx’s CEO Parastoo Khoshakhlagh emphasised that the challenges involved with scaling cell therapies and generating high-quality products limit their full potential and patient accessibility.
GCTx has validated its programming approach across diverse cell types both in vitro and in vivo and has also engineered cells into SuperCells to tailor them for specific disease applications, said GCTx’s chief scientific officer Alex Ng in the company's release.
“Unlike conventional iPSC approaches, TFome goes beyond traditional developmental biology by pushing the limits of the principle that cell identity is determined by the active gene regulatory networks governed by TFs. This approach enables more direct and precise control over cell fate, thereby setting a new standard in cell programming,” added Ng.
