Typewriter Therapeutics has emerged from stealth with $56 million in Series A funding co-led by AN Venture Partners and RA Capital Management, with participation from ANRI, Gemseki and SBI US Gateway Fund.
The biotechnology company is developing RNA-based genetic medicines for cancer, autoimmune diseases and severe genetic disorders using a site-specific, non-viral gene insertion technology.
Typewriter also named Matthew Stanton, Ph.D., CEO; Leanne Peiser, DPhil, Chief Scientific Officer; and former Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., an independent board director.
Typewriter’s Target-Primed Reverse Transcription platform is based on the R2 retrotransposon, a naturally occurring gene insertion system discovered by the company’s academic co-founders.
The company’s two-part therapy uses only RNA delivered through lipid nanoparticles. One mRNA produces the R2 protein, while another RNA contains the therapeutic gene. The components assemble within the cell and insert the gene at a specific genomic target site, after which the R2 machinery and mRNA degrade.
Typewriter is initially targeting in vivo CAR T therapies and genetic liver diseases, with its first non-human primate studies planned for late 2026.
The financing is expected to support development of Typewriter’s first in vivo CAR T candidate following proof-of-concept work in humanized mouse models.
Stanton previously served as a Venture Partner at RA Capital’s Raven incubator and spent seven years at Generation Bio, including five years as Chief Scientific Officer. Earlier, he was Vice President and Head of Chemistry at Moderna Therapeutics.
Peiser brings more than 20 years of biotech and pharmaceutical R&D experience, including work across autologous, allogeneic and in vivo CAR T therapies. Most recently, she was Executive Director of Translational Research, Cellular Therapy at Bristol Myers Squibb.
Typewriter also appointed Stanley R. Riddell, M.D., a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center researcher and co-founder of Juno Therapeutics, to its Scientific Advisory Board.
KEY QUOTES:
“By inserting a durable, functioning gene into a safe-harbor site in T cells using lipid nanoparticle-delivered RNA, our technology is designed to create safer, re-dosable genetic medicines that are accessible to many more patients than current cumbersome and complex CAR T approaches. This financing enables us to build on the proof-of-concept we have established in humanized mouse models and establish our first in vivo CAR T development candidate.”
Matthew Stanton, Ph.D., CEO and Board Director of Typewriter Therapeutics
“The mRNA vaccines proved to the world that RNA delivered by a lipid nanoparticle can become a medicine at global scale. Typewriter takes that breakthrough a decisive step further –using only RNA not to express a transient protein, but to write a durable therapeutic gene into a precise, safe location in the genome, without a virus. I am especially excited by what this means for in vivo CAR T. Engineering a patient’s own T cells in vivo with an LNP-delivered RNA medicine could combine simpler administration with durable CAR expression and the ability to re-dose, potentially making cell therapy safer and accessible to far more patients than today’s complex manufacturing allows. It is a privilege to join the board and help bring this platform to patients with cancer, autoimmune, and genetic diseases.”
Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., Independent Board Director at Typewriter Therapeutics
