PICI-Founded Dispatch Bio Launches to Deliver Universal Solid Tumor Treatment

Backed by $216M, Dispatch Bio will advance a novel immunotherapy platform to address challenges of treating solid tumor cancers

The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) announced this week the launch of Dispatch Bio, a PICI-founded company addressing one of the most persistent challenges in oncology: the treatment of solid tumors. Accounting for approximately 90% of all cancer diagnoses, these cancers have historically proven difficult to treat. Exemplifying the PICI model of advancing science from bench to bedside to the marketplace, Dispatch Bio launches with $216 million in Series A financing.

The company’s approach integrates the four distinct scientific disciplines of its scientific co-founders: Carl June, MD (Director of the PICI Center at the University of Pennsylvania), a leader in cellular engineering; Kole Roybal, PhD (Director of the PICI Center at the University of California, San Francisco), an expert in synthetic biology; K. Christopher Garcia, PhD (PICI Investigator at Stanford University School of Medicine), a specialist in protein design; and Andy J. Minn, MD, PhD (PICI Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; formerly at Penn), an authority on tumor microenvironment science.

This collaboration produced Dispatch Bio’s Flare™ platform, a first-in-class immunotherapy approach engineered to overcome two primary barriers in treating solid tumors: the absence of tumor-specific targets and the immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment. The Flare™ platform works by delivering a novel antigen to tumor cells, which activates immune recognition to enable a targeted attack while aiming to minimize effects on healthy tissue.

Guiding the company is a Board of Directors that includes PICI Founder and Chairman Sean Parker; PICI Chief Scientific Officer John Connolly, PhD; and Jeff Marrazzo as Chairman, alongside Dispatch Bio CEO Sabah Oney, PhD, ARCH Venture Partners’ Co-founder and Managing Director Robert Nelsen, Managing Director Steve Gillis, PhD, and Venture Partner Jake Bauer.

This leadership is backed by a Series A syndicate co-led by founding investors PICI and ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Alexandria Venture Investments.

The launch of Dispatch Bio marks an important step toward achieving the ultimate goal – a universal cure for most solid tumor cancers. PICI congratulates the scientific co-founders, partners and investors who have made this launch possible. To learn more about the company and its science, visit www.dispatchbio.com.

→ Read the press release: Dispatch Bio Launches to Deliver Universal Treatment Across Solid Tumors with Novel Immunotherapy Approach