Cell therapy biotech Tolerance Bio has unveiled with $17.2 million and a mission of targeting immune diseases by stretching and saving the function of a key organ.
The Philadelphia biotech’s seed financing was led by Columbus Venture Partners and will help Tolerance push its programs toward the clinic, according to an Oct. 15 release.
The company is developing therapies that center around the thymus, an organ in the chest that creates white blood cells, or “the master regulator of immune tolerance,” according to the biotech.
Tolerance touts an allogeneic thymus induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based cell therapy platform, plus other thymus-targeting therapies to address immune-mediated diseases caused by abnormalities in immune tolerance. These conditions include cancer, autoimmunity, transplant rejection, infections, immune deficiencies and allergies, according to the company.
More specifically, Tolerance’s tech aims to prevent thymic changes and restore thymic function.
“We intend to rapidly advance and validate our pioneering concepts in a rare disease and then assess proof-of-concept in multiple major indications, advancing these novel therapeutics to target immune disease at its core,” Tolerance CEO and co-founder Francisco Leon, M.D., Ph.D., said in the release.
Leon is an industry vet and serial biotech founder, recently serving as co-founder and chief scientific officer at Provention Bio, a diabetes-focused company that was acquired by Sanofi for $2.9 billion last year.
He’s joined by three former Provention alumni: Justin Vogel, who now serves as Tolerance’s chief financial officer; Phil Ball, Ph.D., the biotech’s senior vice president of business development and operations; and Paul Dunford, vice president of translational science.
The Tolerance team also includes Yeh-Chuin Poh, Ph.D., who serves as vice president of technical operations and previously worked at Semma Therapeutics before its 2019 acquisition by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Tolerance’s iPSC technologies were initially developed at both the University of Colorado and the University of Florida by Holger Russ, Ph.D., who serves as scientific co-founder.