Protein design startup Outpace lands $144M to test treatments that target solid tumors

Outpace scientists Chelsea Dunmire (left) and Willimark Obenza examining the results of a lab experiment. (Outpace Photo / Luca Mercedes)

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Outpace Bio, a Seattle startup using artificial intelligence to design proteins that are incorporated into cancer therapies targeting solid tumors, has raised $144 million in new cash from investors.

The fresh funding will allow Outpace researchers to test its treatment in a clinical setting. The goal is to benefit patients and validate the company’s approach to battling cancer.

A growing number of cancer treatments harness a type of immune system cell called a T cell to target and destroy cancerous cells. The strategy has been successful for blood cancers, but the solid tumors are better at deflecting the therapies, said Outpace co-founder and CEO Marc Lajoie.

So Outpace is modifying the T cells in multiple ways to improve their performance while limiting harmful side effects for patients.

“If you think of cancer as a game of Whack-a-Mole, you can’t just whack the first mole and win the game,” Lajoie told GeekWire. “You need to be able to whack each of the moles that comes up. And so you need multiple technologies in place to be resilient to all of those different mechanisms that the cancer can throw at you to turn off the activity of the drug.”

Outpace co-founders Lajoie and Scott Boyken, who serves as the startup’s chief technology officer, met as University of Washington postdoctoral fellows in the Institute for Protein Design (IPD), which has been pumping out multiple biotech startups in Seattle.

After leaving IPD, the two joined up with a team that included Dr. Stan Riddell, a renowned immunotherapy researcher from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, to launch Lyell Immunopharma in 2019. Lajoie and Boyken spun off Outpace in 2021 to develop additional protein design-based drugs.

Outpace is pursuing a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for patients with advanced platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal cancers. The treatment is on track for Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. The startup hopes to begin treating patients next year.

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Outpace’s Series B funding round and was led by RA Capital Management, with participation from new investors Qatar Investment Authority, Surveyor Capital, Sheatree Capital, Black Opal Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments and other undisclosed investors.

Existing investors ARTIS Ventures, Playground Global, Bristol Myers Squibb, Abstract Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Breton Capital Ventures, WRF Capital and Sahsen Ventures also participated in the round.

Outpace has raised $200 million to date.

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GeekWire contributor Lisa Stiffler is a reporter, editor and Northwest native who nearly two decades ago swapped a lab coat for a reporter’s notebook. Covers local efforts to use technology to solve environmental, health, societal and other do-gooder challenges. Follow @lisa_stiffler and email lisa@geekwire.com

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