immune-evasion
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Ring Therapeutics
Ring Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology company founded by Flagship Pioneering to build a new class of gene therapy delivery vectors from anelloviruses - the most abundant and diverse family of viruses that naturally and harmlessly live inside the human body. Because these commensal viruses evade the immune system, Ring's AnelloVector platform aims to solve gene therapy's biggest limitations: the inability to re-dose patients, pre-existing immunity, and narrow tissue targeting. Through its Anellogy discovery platform and AnelloBricks in-vitro manufacturing technology, Ring is engineering re-dosable, tissue-specific, scalable vectors intended to carry a wide range of therapeutic payloads.
Larkspur Biosciences
Larkspur Biosciences is a Cambridge, Massachusetts precision-oncology company building first-in-class small molecule protein degraders that attack cancer cells where they are most vulnerable. Using its machine-learning-enabled LarkX platform to pinpoint 'cancer cell fitness' genes, Larkspur designs drugs that trigger tumor-intrinsic cell death and disrupt how cancers hide from the immune system. Its lead candidate, LRK-4189, degrades the lipid kinase PIP4K2C and entered first-in-human Phase 1 testing in December 2025 for microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
Normunity
Normunity is a clinical-stage biotech building a new class of cancer drugs it calls 'immune normalizers' - antibodies and T cell engagers that target previously hidden mechanisms tumors use to evade the immune system. Founded on the science of Yale immunologist Lieping Chen and led by drug-development veteran Rachel Humphrey, the company runs research at Yale's West Campus in West Haven, Connecticut, and dosed its first patient in 2025.
Scott Clarke
Scott Clarke is the CEO of CatalYm GmbH, a Munich-based biotech company developing visugromab, a monoclonal antibody targeting GDF-15 to reverse cancer immunotherapy resistance. With over 20 years in biopharmaceuticals - spanning Roche's global oncology partnering, BioMarin, Tizona Therapeutics, and Ambagon Therapeutics - Clarke joined CatalYm in January 2025 to lead the company's $319M-funded push through Phase 2b clinical trials, building on visugromab's striking Phase 1/2a results published in Nature showing durable responses lasting 28-32+ months in multiple solid tumor types.