NEW YORK – CTRL Therapeutics said on Tuesday that it raised $10 million in seed financing to develop its platform for identifying and isolating circulating tumor-reactive lymphocytes (cTRLs), a potential new type of cell therapy for solid tumors.
Chicago-based CTRL is developing its cell therapy product as an alternative to CAR T-cell therapies and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapies, each of which comes with challenges in terms of activity against the tumor. CAR T-cell therapies are designed to target just one tumor antigen, and while TILs are polyclonal, surgery is required to harvest the cells from a patient's tumor.
In contrast, cTRLs have similarities to TILs, but are collected from blood, avoiding the need for surgery. In mice, CD103-expressing cTRLs isolated from peripheral blood were as potent against tumors as TILs with function similar to immune checkpoint blockade.
General Catalyst led the financing with participation from Intermountain Health, FACIT, and others. In addition to optimizing and validating its platform, CTRL will use the funds to hire additional staff.