Outpace Bio raises $30 Million to design next generation cell therapies

Written by Caroline Seydel

Outpace Bio, a spinout from Lyell Immunopharma, has landed $30 million in Series A funding to design new proteins that solve problems in cell therapies. Lyell’s focus is developing new T cell therapies to fight cancer. To get started, Outpace is collaborating with Lyell to develop molecular controls for T cells that could refine and strengthen targeted cell therapies. Beyond that, the company plans to establish a series of partnerships to develop a variety of next-generation cell therapies

Outpace co-founders Marc Lajoie and Scott Boyken both trained in the Baker lab at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, which specializes in “de novo protein design.” Rather than finding proteins that already exist and then trying to customize them, de novo protein design means building completely original proteins from basic building blocks, using advanced computer algorithms to predict the created protein’s final 3D shape.

Lajoie and Boyken want to bring the protein design revolution to the realm of cell therapies. T cells are immune cells that can “learn” how to recognize and destroy harmful cells, including cancer cells. But cancer cells have many strategies to hide from T cells, fend them off, or deactivate them. Because cancer cells arise from the body’s own cells, they don’t wave a “foreign” flag that attracts T cells to come and kill them. But they do often sprout combinations of proteins on their surface that don’t occur on healthy cells.

In other words, training a T cell to seek-and-destroy based on any one protein can backfire, since it’s rare for a cancer cell to display a protein that’s never found on healthy cells. But training a T cell to find a particular combination of proteins can help it home in on the tumor specifically.

During their time at the IPD, Boyken and Lajoie designed a protein “computer” called co-LOCKR, for “Colocalization-dependent Latching Orthogonal Cage/Key pRoteins.” All that just means that co-LOCKRs are proteins that change shape when they are nearby each other. When they attach to different proteins on the surface of a cancer cell, they combine to form a beacon that summons T cells to take out the cancer.

“The proteins themselves are performing the computations and then actuate only when all the conditions are met,” says Lajoie. “That actuation allows the recruitment of the T cells.”

Based on the success of that project, Boyken and Lajoie helped launch Lyell. Now, they’re branching off with Outpace to keep up the momentum of innovation without getting bogged down in the details of clinical development.

“We have a different business model than a typical cell therapy company,” Lajoie says. “We spun out of Lyell specifically because we didn’t want to be limited by the number of programs that a given company can pursue in the clinic at a time.” Outpace envisions operating under what Lajoie calls a “value-add partnership model,” where Outpace scientists develop new biological mechanisms to solve cellular problems, and then partner with companies who have the expertise to bring those solutions to the clinic.

“The technologies that we’re developing are super-generalizable, useful applications that can be brought to many different biological problems in many cell types,” Lajoie says.

Outpace designs proteins that can conditionally manage cell functions like gene expression, T cell exhaustion, or cytokine signaling. OUTPACE BIO

One example is cytokines, powerful immune system signaling proteins that regulate a variety of processes, including inflammation. They direct immune cells in all kinds of necessary functions, but they can also cause tremendous damage if they get out of control.  By designing new proteins and cellular control systems, Outpace hopes to open up access to this powerful class of molecule that has previously been limited by toxic side effects.

“Our technology really enables turning things on at the right time and place,” Boyken explains. “With really precise regulation of cytokines, you can maintain the efficacy you want where you want it but eliminate the systemic toxicity you get with so many other cytokine products.”

Cells constantly make decisions based on the conditions in their surroundings, and those decisions are carried out by proteins. With their expertise in protein design and cellular control, Outpace is creating new tools to seize control of those cellular decisions.

“We really are covering a lot of ground scientifically,” says Lajoie. “We’re able to do that because we’re able to focus our resources around innovation rather than around clinical development.”

Series A financing was led by Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. and ARTIS Ventures, with additional funding from Abstract Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Playground Global, Sahsen Ventures, and WRF Capital.

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