Outpace Bio, a cell therapy company using unrivaled AI-powered protein design to program immune cells for improved function inside patients battling solid tumors, announced that it had raised $144 million in oversubscribed Series B financing. The Series B funding round brought the total capital raised by Outpace to approximately $200 million. It was led by RA Capital Management, with participation from new investors Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Sheatree Capital, Black Opal Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and other undisclosed investors. Outpace’s existing investors ARTIS Ventures, Playground Global, Bristol Myers Squibb, Abstract Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Breton Capital Ventures, WRF Capital, and Sahsen Ventures, also joined in the round.
The proceeds from the funding will be used to advance multiple programmed T cell product candidates to early clinical proof-of-concept for the treatment of solid tumors. And the company’s lead program OPB-101 is a mesothelin-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell enhanced by Outpace’s proprietary OUTSMART, OUTLAST, OUTSPACER, and OUTSAFE technologies, which is on track for IND clearance and first dosing in 2025 for patients with advanced platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancer. And the funds will support the expansion of Outpace’s future pipeline leveraging the company’s powerful plug-and-play technology platform.
Outpace also announced that Jake Simson, PhD, Partner at RA Capital Management has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are grateful for the support and partnership of an outstanding syndicate of top-tier investors who share our vision. At our founding we set out to build groundbreaking technologies that access novel biology unreachable by standard protein engineering approaches, allowing us to program how cell therapies function inside patients: to access the tumor, to survive / expand / functionally persist in the tumor, and to broaden the host immune response in the tumor microenvironment. This Series B financing allows us to accelerate the clinical development of our first two programs and to expand our innovative pipeline & platform as we aim to change patient outcomes for the better.”
- Marc Lajoie, PhD, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Outpace
“Existing cell therapies have fallen short in treating solid tumors, offering limited and transient responses. We are proud to support Outpace’s revolutionary approach to cell therapy, leveraging their unique AI-driven protein design capabilities to solve the multiple obstacles preventing durable responses, with unmatched speed and success rates. The Outpace team is distinguished by their exceptional mechanism-driven science and commitment to deliver profound shifts in treatment outcomes for patients with solid tumors.”
- Jake Simson, PhD, Partner at RA Capital Management
