Insider Brief
- Outpace Bio raised $144 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing led by RA Capital Management, bringing total capital raised to $200 million.
- The funds will advance T cell product candidates for solid tumors, with the lead program, OPB-101, targeting clinical trials in 2025.
- Jake Simson, PhD, from RA Capital, joins Outpace’s Board of Directors, supporting the company’s AI-driven approach to improving cell therapy outcomes.
PRESS RELEASE — Seattle, WA/August 1, 2024/(GLOBE NEWSWIRE)— Financing syndicate led by RA Capital Management with significant support from a world-class group of existing and new healthcare investors
– Proceeds to advance multiple programmed T cell product candidates to early clinical proof-of-concept in solid tumors and to expand Outpace’s pipeline & platform
–Jake Simson, PhD, Partner at RA Capital Management to join Outpace Board of Directors
Outpace Bio, a cell therapy company using unrivaled AI-powered protein design to program immune cells for improved function inside patients battling solid tumors, today announced that it has raised $144 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing.
The Series B financing brings the total capital raised by Outpace to approximately $200 million and was led by RA Capital Management, with participation from new investors Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Sheatree Capital, Black Opal Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and other undisclosed investors. Outpace’s existing investors ARTIS Ventures, Playground Global, Bristol Myers Squibb, Abstract Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Breton Capital Ventures, WRF Capital, and Sahsen Ventures, also participated in the financing.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance multiple programmed T cell product candidates to early clinical proof-of-concept for the treatment of solid tumors. The company’s lead program OPB-101 is a mesothelin-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell enhanced by Outpace’s proprietary OUTSMART™, OUTLAST™, OUTSPACER™, and OUTSAFE™ technologies, which is on track for IND clearance and first dosing in 2025 for patients with advanced platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer. Additionally, the funds will support the expansion of Outpace’s future pipeline leveraging the company’s powerful plug-and-play technology platform.
“We are grateful for the support and partnership of an outstanding syndicate of top-tier investors who share our vision,” said Marc Lajoie, PhD, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Outpace. “At our founding we set out to build groundbreaking technologies that access novel biology unreachable by standard protein engineering approaches, allowing us to program how cell therapies function inside patients: to access the tumor, to survive / expand / functionally persist in the tumor, and to broaden the host immune response in the tumor microenvironment. This Series B financing allows us to accelerate the clinical development of our first two programs and to expand our innovative pipeline & platform as we aim to change patient outcomes for the better.”
In addition, Outpace announced that Jake Simson, PhD, Partner at RA Capital Management has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors. “Existing cell therapies have fallen short in treating solid tumors, offering limited and transient responses,” said Simson. “We are proud to support Outpace’s revolutionary approach to cell therapy, leveraging their unique AI-driven protein design capabilities to solve the multiple obstacles preventing durable responses, with unmatched speed and success rates. The Outpace team is distinguished by their exceptional mechanism-driven science and commitment to deliver profound shifts in treatment outcomes for patients with solid tumors.”
About Outpace Bio, Inc. (www.outpacebio.com)
Outpace is using unrivaled AI-powered protein design to deliver on the promise of cell therapy for solid tumors by programming cells for improved function inside the patient. The company designs proteins that solve the key barriers to efficacy: poor access to the tumor, weak survival, rapid inactivation, antigen escape, and high required doses that drive toxicity. Outpace creates modular, plug-and-play technology assets and combines them to produce cell therapies with unprecedented efficacy, advancing an internal pipeline of engineered T cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors. Lead program OPB-101, a mesothelin-specific CAR T cell therapeutic candidate, demonstrates complete elimination of solid tumors in stringent in vivo models at very low treatment doses (as low as 50,000 cells) and is on track to enter the clinic in 2025. Outpace’s approach to internal and partnered pipeline development is optimized for rapid clinical validation of its technologies across diverse cell types, manufacturing processes, and disease indications. Outpace is based in Seattle, Washington. For more information, please visit outpacebio.com, email [email protected], and follow us on LinkedIn.
About RA Capital (www.racap.com)
RA Capital is a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare and life science companies that are developing medicines, medical devices, and diagnostics. The flexibility of its strategy allows RA Capital to provide seed funding to startups and to lead private, IPO, and follow-on financings for its portfolio companies, enabling management teams to drive value creation from inception through commercialization.
About ARTIS Ventures (www.av.co)
ARTIS Ventures has been partnering with visionary founders who create new markets or redefine existing ones since 2001. Since the industry’s inception, ARTIS has committed to building the TechBio® ecosystem by investing in companies at the nexus of technology and life sciences, including YouTube (acq. by Google), Stemcentrx (acq. by AbbVie), Palantir (IPO), Rad AI, Tessera Therapeutics, IDbyDNA (acq. by Illumina), Eko Health, Unnatural Products, Seed, Lemonaid Health (acq. by 23andMe), Locus Bio, and more.
