Torque, a Flagship Pioneering Company, Launches Platform to Develop a New Class of Deep-Primed™ Immune Cell Therapies, Financed with $25M Series A and Led by a Veteran Management Team

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Torque, an immuno-oncology company developing Deep Primed™ cell therapies that direct and evoke immune responses in the tumor microenvironment, today announced the launch of its technology platform to create a new class of immune cell therapeutics to treat cancer, financed with $25 million in Series A capital by Flagship Pioneering. The Torque platform makes it possible to anchor powerful stimulatory cytokines, antibodies, and small molecules directly to immune cells to direct their activity and increase their efficacy and durability in the "hostile" tumor microenvironment, without systemic exposure.

The company also announced the appointment of Bart Henderson as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Henderson is a co-founder of Torque who most recently was founder and President of Rhythm (Nasdaq: RYTM), which he established to develop two peptide therapeutics focused on intractable metabolic disorders. The first was acquired by Allergan in 2016 and the second is in Phase 3 clinical trials with FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of rare genetic disorders of obesity. Prior to that, Mr. Henderson was a founding employee of Radius, where he built the product pipeline through a series of product acquisitions.

"The tumor microenvironment shuts down immune cells, protecting tumors from their attack," said Doug Cole, MD, Lead Director of Torque and Managing Partner of Flagship Pioneering. "Torque is engineering immune cells with the tools to fight back to overcome this immunosuppression. This directed, precisely controlled approach goes far beyond what can be achieved using either gene editing or genetic engineering alone."

"By arming immune cells to function robustly deep in the tumor microenvironment, this approach has the potential to create a new class of cellular immunotherapeutics, substantially expanding the efficacy of conventional cell-based methods," said Darrell Irvine, PhD, co-founder of Torque, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Torque's approach has the potential to significantly expand the proportion of patients that respond to cellular immunotherapy and to take us closer to curing cancer, rather than just slowing its progression."

Torque also announced the appointment of Ulrik Nielsen, PhD as President and Founder Chairman of the Board. Dr. Nielsen is a co-founder of Torque and a leading expert in immunology drug discovery and development. Since Torque's founding in 2015, he led development of the company's platform and the creation of its initial product candidates. Dr. Nielsen was previously a founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Merrimack (Nasdaq: MACK), where he remains on the board of directors, and he served as Chief Executive Officer of Silver Creek Pharmaceuticals, a majority-owned subsidiary of Merrimack.

Torque has assembled a world-class management team, board of directors, and scientific advisory board for developing breakthrough therapies, with extensive expertise in cell biology, immunology, biomaterials engineering, protein engineering, cell/biologics development, and drug delivery. In addition to Mr. Henderson and Dr. Nielsen, the company's executive leadership includes Torque co-founder Thomas Lars Andresen, PhD as Head of Discovery. Dr. Andresen is an expert in biomaterial engineering and drug delivery and a Professor and group leader of the Colloids and Biological Interfaces group at DTU Nanotech who previously served as head of the DTU Center for Nanomedicine and Theranostics. Becker Hewes, MD serves as Torque's Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Hewes' expertise in clinical and preclinical development of immuno-oncology compounds includes early clinical development of ribociclib in breast cancer. Prior to joining Torque, he was Executive Medical Director at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, and he previously held positions in early oncology clinical development at Genzyme and AstraZeneca.

About Deep-Primed™ Immune Cell Therapeutics
Torque's Deep-Priming platform is based on 10 years of research and development focused on taking very potent immunomodulatory drugs—cytokines, antibodies, and small molecules—that have the ability to activate and protect T cells from the hostile tumor microenvironment. Administering these immunomodulators systemically to a patient can cause lethal toxicity by activating immune cells throughout the body. Deep-Primed™ therapeutics are designed to activate only the T cells that are targeting the tumor. This is achieved by anchoring the immunomodulators to the surface of the immune cell to act locally, in the microenvironment, overcoming the barriers to effective, durable, and safe cancer immunotherapy.

Torque is applying the Deep-Priming™ platform across all immune cell therapeutic classes: CAR T cells, TCR therapeutics, NK cells, and Tumor-Associated Antigen (TAA)-specific T cells. In hematologic cancers, this technology has the potential to improve on the initial success of CAR T therapeutics, enabling more durable responses and with less toxicity. For solid tumors, Deep-Priming has the potential to enable efficacy against cancers that are protected by hostile microenvironments not readily addressable with the first generation of immune cell therapies.

About Torque (www.torquetx.com)
Torque is an immuno-oncology company developing Deep Primed™ cell therapies that direct and evoke immune responses in the tumor microenvironment. Torque's lead product candidate is Deep IL-15, which is in pre-IND development for hematologic and solid tumors. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources and develops first-in-category life sciences companies. Its institutional innovation foundry, Flagship VentureLabs®, is where Flagship's team of scientific entrepreneurs systematically evolves enterprising ideas into new fields or previously undiscovered areas of science into real-world inventions and ventures. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has applied its hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster nearly 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $20 billion in aggregate value, 500+ issued patents and more than 45 clinical trials for novel therapeutic agents.

Since inception, Flagship has capitalized its growing portfolio with over $1 billion coming from $1.75 billion of aggregate investor capital committed across five funds. The firm's portfolio includes pioneering ventures that are transforming human health and sustainability, including: Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB) and Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS), as well as private companies, including Axcella Health, Indigo Agriculture, Moderna Therapeutics and Rubius Therapeutics. Flagship has ongoing corporate innovation alliances with several market leaders, including: AstraZeneca, the Crop Science Division of Bayer and Nestlé Health Science. To learn more about Flagship Pioneering, please visit our website: www.FlagshipPioneering.com.

Contact:
Mary Moynihan
M2Friend Biocommunications
802-951-9600
mary@m2friend.com

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/torque-a-flagship-pioneering-company-launches-platform-to-develop-a-new-class-of-deep-primed-immune-cell-therapies-financed-with-25m-series-a-and-led-by-a-veteran-management-team-300555252.html

SOURCE Torque