Inceptor Bio launches new potential cancer treatment based on UNC technology
Inceptor Bio, a young Research Triangle Park startup funding new cancer treatments, said Wednesday that its first investment is going to a promising cancer-treatment technology out of UNC-Chapel Hill.
Inceptor, which raised $26 million from investors last month, will license a CAR-T therapy technology that was developed in the lab of Dr. Lishan Su, a researcher who spent 24 years at UNC before becoming head of the Maryland Institute of Human Virology last year.
CAR-T therapy involves genetically altering T cells, a type of white blood cell that is critical to the immune system, to attack specific cancers.
The UNC technology, which could be applied to several cancer types, has shown some promise in animal models for renal cell carcinoma, said Mike Nicholson, Inceptor Bio’s chief scientific officer.
Inceptor, founded last year, plans to launch a number of companies around different cancer treatments in the coming years. The CAR-T therapy, for instance, will be developed under the name FastBack Bio, while still remaining under the Inceptor umbrella.
The hope is to use Inceptor’s funding to take the therapy into to clinical trials — though it isn’t clear yet what type of cancer the CAR-T treatment will ultimately target.
Inceptor’s strategy relies on centralizing things like manufacturing and human resources under, while the smaller companies it spins off focus solely on research and development. This, the company argues, will allow the individual teams researching treatments to remain lean and efficient.
“A key idea behind our model,” Nicholson said, “is that if you have an effective core company that can centralize some things like IT, HR and finance and even early-stage regulatory ... we should be able to keep the sub-companies fairly lean moving forward.”
Nicholson added that Inceptor hopes to launch two to three more companies around licensed technology by the end of the year. The company is mainly interested in cell and gene therapy treatments.
Inceptor hopes to lease around 25,000 square feet of manufacturing and research space in the RTP area in the coming weeks. Most of Inceptor’s funding is going toward that space and the hiring of around 50 to 75 people by the end of next year.
The company has been working at BioLabs North Carolina, a flexible lab space provider in downtown Durham.
Abe Maingi, head of business operations at Inceptor, said that as part of its licensing agreement with UNC, Su will continue to develop his CAR-T therapy with FastBack Bio.
Nicholson said FastBack hopes to apply for permission to do clinical trials on its CAR-T program by the end of 2023.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate.
