Link Cell launches with $60M Series A

Link Cell Therapies, an oncology cell therapy company, announced its official launch from stealth with a $60 million Series A financing that was led by Johnson & Johnson, through its corporate venture capital organization, JJDC, with participation from founding investors Samsara BioCapital and Sheatree Capital, as well as Wing Venture Capital and other new strategic and financial investors.

Link’s proprietary logic-gating technologies allow for safe targeting of multiple antigens that are co-expressed on cancer cells but do not overlap or only minimally overlap in their normal healthy tissue expression. This platform enables the creation of next-generation CAR-T therapeutics for solid and liquid cancers built upon a new landscape of ‘clean’ target pairs.

“Link is advancing a technology that we developed while at Stanford University that allows for logic-gated CAR-T cell control. 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. We believe this approach will enable potent CAR-T therapies to attack a wide range of tumors while sparing healthy tissue,” said co-founder Robbie Majzner, MD.

Link’s lead program, LNK001 for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma, is on track for an IND application and initiation of dosing in a phase 1 clinical trial in 2026.