Millions Flow Into Captain T Cell as Berlin’s Cell Therapy Scene Defies the Gloom

Funding in Europe’s biotech sector may be tight, but it clearly hasn’t dried up. Munich-based Tubulis recently proved that with its record Series C, and now Berlin is having a moment of its own. After 4TEEN4 Pharma secured fresh capital, another Berlin spin-out – Captain T Cell, born at the Max Delbrück Center – has closed a multi-million-euro round. Not bad for a company working in one of the toughest fields of all: cell therapy. One wonders whether the growing Bayer Co.Lab network is already paying dividends.

The company now has a total of €20 million in funding and grants to push forward its novel cell therapies for solid tumours. New backers include Springboard Health Angels, Pluton Asset Holding, Sintra Limited and the Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, joining the existing investor base.

The fresh capital will drive CTC127, an autologous TCR-T candidate, into its Phase I TOMATA trial at Charité and eight other German cancer centres. The study will enrol patients with MAGE-A4-positive tumours such as lung, bladder and ovarian cancers. In parallel, the team is advancing its allogeneic TCR-T platform, which has already achieved complete tumour remissions in vivo and is now being prepared for clinical translation.

CEO Felix Lorenz says the strong investor appetite reflects confidence in a platform that promises both best-in-class and first-in-class programmes. The company hopes to offer new options for patients with advanced solid tumours – a group for whom existing cell therapies typically fall short.

At the core of Captain T Cell’s approach is a proprietary engineering toolbox designed to make T cells more resilient in hostile tumour microenvironments. It includes a TGF-ß switch receptor and modular “armouring” elements compatible with TCR-T, CAR-T, TIL and future in-vivo engineering strategies. The company is part of a new wave of European immuno-oncology start-ups.

A perch in Bayer’s Co.Lab

Another vote of confidence came through the start-up’s selection for Bayer’s Co.Lab incubator in Berlin. Captain T Cell is one of only two companies chosen to occupy the 11th-floor co-working site in the Bayer Tower. Around a dozen team members now work there, benefitting from the infrastructure, the global Bayer network and links to other Co.Lab sites – all, as Lorenz stresses, with “100% freedom to do what we want”. The fit with Bayer’s broader strategy may have helped, but there are no obligations, preferential rights or hidden strings attached.

Did the Co.Lab badge help tip the latest financing over the line? Lorenz won’t go that far – but with a smile, he concedes: “It certainly didn’t hurt.”