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Link Cell Therapies stepped out of stealth this week with a $60-million series A round led by Johnson & Johnson's venture arm, lifting the young biotech's total haul to $92 million and putting some fresh capital behind a familiar, but stubborn problem: how to make CAR-T cell therapies safer and more broadly usable.The South San Francisco company, founded by Stanford University researchers Robbie Majzner and Crystal Mackall, is betting that a different way of choosing targets may be able to address why CAR-T therapies have struggled outside blood cancers.Its approach relies on its "logic-gate" technology that activates CARs only when two antigens appear together on the same tumour cell. Traditional CAR-T programmes often hinge on a single marker that is also present, to varying degrees, on healthy tissue. Link Cell's system functions more like a two-key lock: each antigen alone is insufficient to trigger killing, but their co-localisation switches the cell on."For most cancer types, particularly solid tumours, the promise of CAR-T therapies is limited by a dearth of cancer-specific targets," Majzner said in a release Monday.By requiring a specific antigen pair, Link Cell argues it can define "clean" target combinations that are common in tumours yet rare in normal tissue, reducing on-target, off-tumour toxicities that have derailed prior efforts. The goal, Majzner adds, is to "attack a wide range of tumours while sparing healthy tissue," a claim that will be tested as programmes move into the clinic.Link Cell's lead candidate, called LNK001, targets a dual-antigen pair in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and is on track for an IND filing and initial Phase I dosing in 2026. According to the company, LNK001 targets two antigens that are uniquely and highly co-expressed in most RCC tumours.Meanwhile, a second candidate in colorectal cancer is slated for candidate selection next year, with clinical testing planned for 2027, alongside earlier projects in both solid and blood cancers that could be partnered.Samsara BioCapital and Sheatree Capital participated in the series A round, as did Wing Venture Capital. The fundraise, which follows a 2022 seed round led by Samsara and Sheatree, also adds Bristol Myers Squibb and Kyowa Kirin as investors.

Link touts “logic-gating technology” that is built to enable a higher level of precision and thereby a safer deployment of CAR-T therapeutics.\n Cell therapy company Link Cell Therapies is launching with $60 million and a mission to develop potent CAR-T therapies that go after a range of tumors while avoiding patients\' healthy tissue.The Stanford University spinout’s $60 million series A financing was led by Johnson & Johnson’s VC organization, according to a Dec. 15 release. The round included backing from Link’s founding investors Samsara BioCapital and Sheatree Capital, plus Bristol Myers Squibb and Kyowa Kirin, among others.Since its 2022 founding, the California biotech has raised a total of $92 million in seed and series A cash, according to the release.  Link touts “logic-gating technology” designed to enable higher precision for the safer deployment of CAR-T compared to current therapeutics.“We recognized that for most cancer types, particularly solid tumors, the promise of CAR-T therapies is limited by a dearth of cancer-specific targets and abundant expression of most solid tumor targets in normal vital tissue,” Link co-founder Robbie Majzner, M.D., associate professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, said in the release.\"Link is advancing a technology that we developed while at Stanford University that allows for logic-gated CAR-T cell control,” the former Stanford instructor Majzner continued, referring to his work conducted with fellow co-founder Crystal Mackall, M.D., professor of pediatrics and medicine at Stanford.  “The Link-based CAR activates and kills target cells only when a combination of antigens is co-localized on the tumor, thereby bypassing normal tissues that express only one of those targets,” Majzner explained. “We believe this approach will enable potent CAR-T therapies to attack a wide range of tumors while sparing healthy tissue.”The platform\'s safety features are designed to create novel “clean” target pairs and enable next-gen CAR-Ts for both solid and liquid cancers.Link\'s lead program, coded LNK001, is currently in preclinical development for renal cell carcinoma (RCC), with the biotech anticipating phase 1 dosing to start sometime next year, according to the release.The biotech’s second program, which takes aim at colorectal cancer, is slated for in-human testing in 2027.Link hosts earlier CAR-T programs in solid and liquid cancers that the biotech says will be developed internally or via partnerships.