Clasp Therapeutics launches with $150 million

Clasp Therapeutics , a company that aims to create a next-generation version of immunoncology drugs called bispecific T-cell engagers (TCEs), launched March 20 with $150 million in series A financing. The start-up's platform, based on the work of cancer geneticist Bert Vogelstein and immuno-oncologist Drew Pardoll, both at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will produce off-the-shelf therapies that specifically target common oncogenes without the toxicity currently associated with this modality, says CEO Robert Ross. Bispecific TCEs act as matchmakers for destruction : they are antibody-like proteins in which one arm binds a T cell and another binds a tumor cell. Bringing the two cells together activates the T cell to destroy the tumor cell. In 2018, the first TCE, blinatumomab, received US Food and Drug Administration approval to treat a specific form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A handful of TCEs have since made it to the clinic, and several more