Over the past 50 years the pharmaceutical industry has moved from small molecules (pills) to large molecules (injectables) to therapies based on cells. The last of these has become increasingly important over the past 5 years especially for cancer patients. The key in making such cellular products is to ensure you can add “good” cells while excluding “bad” cells.
So when Ivan Dimov came to Lightspeed as the CEO and co-founder of Orca Bio with the vision of developing novel cellular products with dramatically better capture of the “good” cells and avoidance of the “bad”, we knew this was exactly the kind of high impact company that Lightspeed likes to back. And so in 2016 Lightspeed led the first major investment into the company.
Orca Bio’s initial focus has been on bone marrow transplants (BMT). Patients undergoing BMT have their immune cells eliminated and new immune cells introduced from suitable donors. It’s important these patients reconstitute their immune systems quickly and correctly to fight off infections and kill off residual cancer cells. At the same time it’s important that the new immune system doesn’t turn against the patient and cause Graft vs Host Disease (GVHD). Unfortunately today the inability to transfer the correct cells means current BMT lead to very serious problems (including death) in up to 30% of the patients.
Orca Bio has developed two novel cellular products which are now being tested in human patients. The lead cellular product is being tested in the TGFT-201 clinical study while Orca Bio’s next generation product is being tested in the OGFT-001 clinical trial. Already in these clinical trials these novel cellular products are helping cancer patients.
Today, the company announced a new round of financing that will allow Orca Bio to complete these trials, assemble the data and submit that to the FDA for approval. Even with existing imperfect grafts there are 50,000 bone marrow transplants annually so more effective cellular products would have a huge impact on patient care. And the company already has plans to develop other kinds of cellular products to transform treatment for patients with other diseases.
As a co-lead of Orca’s most recent fundraising, Lightspeed is excited to continue to support the vision of the Orca Bio team to launch its first two cellular products and to develop and launch other cellular products. And we look forward to Orca Bio making a significant impact on the lives of patients both here and abroad.
Lightspeed has made over a dozen high impact investments into the medical and healthcare sectors including such standouts as Guardant Health, Personalis and Forty Seven. And with over $4B in new funds Lightspeed has recently raised, we plan to make many more…
To learn more about Orca Bio please go to www.orcabio.com
By Jonathan MacQuitty and Ravi Mhatre
