Captain T Cell closed multi-million-euro round
The latest equity funding, along with already secured grants, provides Captain T Cell with a total budget of EUR 20 million to advance its autologous program CT127 to clinical Phase I read-outs and its allogeneic program for off-the-shelf solid tumor treatments towards clinical trial readiness. CTC127 is based on a versatile proprietary engineering toolbox, which enables functional “armoring” of T cells to enhance their anti-tumor activity, persistence, and resilience within the solid tumor microenvironment.
The round was led by Springboard Health Angels and Pluton Asset Holding AG, joined by Sintra Limited and Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, as well as existing investors i&i Biotech Fund, HIL-INVENT and Brandenburg Kapital.
In 2027, Captain T Cell will begin the first clinical trial of its TCR-T cell therapy: ToMA4TA1. It will be led by principal investigator Professor Antonia Busse, a senior physician in the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Tumor Immunology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Coordinated by National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Berlin, the study will enroll patients with multiple advanced MAGE-A4-positive solid tumor indications, including lung, bladder, gastroesophageal, ovarian, and head and neck cancers from Berlin as well as NCT sites in Dresden, Heidelberg, SouthWest, WERA, and West, along with the Nuremberg Hospital as an external partner. Decades of foundational research at the Max Delbrück Center and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) – supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space – have laid the groundwork for this trial.
Challenging fundraising environment
In parallel, the company has already demonstrated complete solid tumor responses in vivo with a program leveraging its first-in-class allogeneic TCR-T cell platform and will advance it toward clinical trial readiness. It also plans to extend its proprietary best-in-class toolbox towards in vivo T cell therapy applications.
“Despite a challenging fundraising environment, we have gained broad investor support, which underscores the strong competitive profile of Captain T Cell’s best- and first-in-class next-generation T cell therapy platform and enables us to advance these therapies for the benefit of cancer patients,” said Dr. Felix Lorenz, CEO of Captain T Cell. “Our best-in-class autologous program CTC127 will enter a fully funded clinical trial and our first-in-class allogeneic TCR-T platform is progressing toward clinical readiness.”
