The funds will be used to support development of Asgard’s lead program AT-108 to IND-readiness by 2026, expand and reinforce its research and development team, and fuel new reprogramming modalities and delivery platforms to strengthen the pipeline.

“Asgard’s technology overcomes challenges faced by traditional cell therapies, enabling the recreation of desired functional immune cells directly inside the patient’s body. We believe this breakthrough strategy will give rise to the next generation of cell therapies. This financing also follows a strong pre-clinical package providing PoC for AT-108,” says Cristiana Pires, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Asgard Therapeutics.

The round was co-led by RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., with participation from existing investors Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden.

We’re proud to continue to support Asgard in its mission to bring an off-the-shelf personalized therapy to the clinic and deliver on the promise of the technology for the benefit of patients.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome new investors JJDC and RV Invest to Asgard Therapeutics. This marks a significant milestone for Asgard’s novel concept of direct in vivo cellular reprogramming in oncology. We’re proud to continue to support Asgard in its mission to bring an off-the-shelf personalized therapy to the clinic and deliver on the promise of the technology for the benefit of patients,” says João Ribas, Principal, Novo Holdings, Seed Investments.

Aleksei Zeifman, Investment Manager at RV Invest, and a representative from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., will join Asgard’s board of directors with immediate effect.

AT-108

AT-108 is a first-in-class, off-the-shelf gene therapy that directly reprograms tumor cells into antigen-presenting dendritic cells, ultimately leading to a personalized anti-tumor immune response. Building on several publications in the high-impact journal Science Immunology, AT-108 has achieved preclinical proof of concept (PoC) in patient-derived ex vivo models as well as rodent in vivo models, inducing strong anti-tumor immunity and abscopal effect, even in a monotherapy setting, describes the company.

AT-108 reprograms cancer cells inside the patient’s body to become conventional Type 1 Dendritic Cells (cDC1s), a rare subset of immune cells, which are critical for effective anti-tumor immunity. These induced cDC1s present the individual’s specific cancer antigens to the immune system, triggering personalized and systemic anti-cancer immune responses. AT-108 is based on a replication-deficient adenoviral vector that delivers three transcription factors into tumor cells, rewiring their gene expression signatures and thus “programming” them to become immunogenic cDC1-like cells.

Photo: Team Asgard Therapeutics