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– LNK001, an AND-gated CAR-T therapy targeting CAIX and ENPP3, is being evaluated in a Phase 1 study in advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma at MD Anderson Cancer Center –
– Jie D’Elia, Ph.D., joins as Chief Executive Officer and Friedrich Graf Finckenstein, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer; co-founder Brian Slingerland becomes Executive Chair –
– Series A financing upsized from $60 million to $90 million to advance a second solid tumor program in colorectal cancer and expand the pipeline –
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Link Cell Therapies (“Link”), an oncology cell therapy company utilizing its proprietary logic-gating technology to develop next-generation CAR-T therapeutics for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, today announced that it has initiated clinical dosing for its lead program, LNK001. The company also announced three additions to its executive leadership team and a $30 million expansion of its Series A financing.
Initiated clinical dosing of LNK001
LNK001 is being evaluated in a Phase 1 study in patients with advanced or metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (“RCC”). Clinical dosing has begun at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
LNK001 requires the co-expression of two antigens, CAIX and ENPP3, which are both highly expressed in most RCC tumors. CAIX has long been among the most attractive targets in RCC, but conventional CAR-T cells directed against it have been limited by on-target, off-tumor toxicity in the biliary epithelium, where CAIX is also expressed. By gating CAR-T activity on both antigens, LNK001 is designed to preserve the antitumor potential of CAIX targeting while sparing the healthy tissue that has constrained single-antigen approaches.
LNK001 is manufactured at CTMC, a joint venture between Resilience and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Additional clinical trial details are available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07564232.
Leadership additions
Jie D’Elia, Ph.D., joins as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. D’Elia was previously the CEO of SystImmune, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel multi-specific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (“ADCs”). Before SystImmune, she spent eleven years at Bristol Myers Squibb (“BMS”), most recently as Senior Vice President of Business Development, Oncology, Hematology, and Cell Therapy. During her tenure at BMS, she made a significant impact to BMS’s pipeline evolution through multiple strategic partnerships and acquisitions in therapeutic areas ranging from oncology, hematology, cardiovascular, virology, and cell therapy. Prior to BMS, Dr. D’Elia served as the Vice President and Global Head of Business Development at Simcere Pharmaceutical, and held roles at AstraZeneca, Boston Consulting Group and Baxter Healthcare. Over the course of her career, she has led more than $40 billion in strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Dr. D’Elia holds a Ph.D. from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Brian Slingerland becomes Executive Chair. Brian co-founded Link in 2022 with Robbie Majzner, M.D., and Crystal Mackall, M.D., and has served on the Board of Directors. He previously co-founded and was the CEO of Stemcentrx, a next-generation ADC company that pursued novel targets with limited or no normal tissue expression, including DLL3 and SEZ6, and built the industry’s first end-to-end ADC GMP manufacturing facility. Abbvie acquired Stemcentrx in 2016 for $6.2 billion, which at the time was the largest private acquisition of all time in biotechnology. Prior to founding Stemcentrx, Brian was a Founding Partner at Qatalyst Partners and Vice President at Goldman Sachs where he helped companies raise private venture capital, execute IPOs and other financings, advised on mergers and acquisitions, and gained valuable experience working with CEOs at various stages of development. Brian has held other biotechnology CEO roles, including of recently acquired Convergent Genomics, and Everest Detection, and served on the Boards of Directors and provided initial capital to multiple biotech companies including Enliven Therapeutics. Brian is a graduate of Virginia Tech.
Friedrich Graf Finckenstein, M.D., joins as Chief Medical Officer. Dr Graf Finckenstein is a physician-scientist with decades of experience in clinical medicine, cancer research and drug development. Most recently, as Chief Medical Officer of Iovance Biotherapeutics he progressed the clinical portfolio of Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) therapies across indications and next generation products and contributed to the approval of AMTAGVI® (lifileucel) in the US, Canada and Australia as the first approved cell therapy for a solid tumor. Before Iovance, he was Global Head of Oncology Translational Medicine at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) in Basel, Switzerland. Earlier, he held clinical leadership roles at BMS, spanning early through late-stage development, including contributions to the approval of Opdivo® (nivolumab) in lung cancer. He holds a medical degree from the University of Hamburg, is a board-certified pediatrician and has conducted laboratory cancer research at the Ludwig Institute, San Diego Branch, the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Hamburg.
“From the beginning, our vision has been to translate this breakthrough science into therapies that can make a profound difference for people impacted by cancer,” said co-founder Robbie Majzner, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. “Bringing in leaders with the experience, commitment and passion to advance our technology and execute at scale gives me tremendous confidence that we can realize that vision.”
Abraham Bassan, Member of the Link Board of Directors and Partner at Samsara BioCapital, says “We are excited about the strength and depth of the leadership team at Link. Their broad experience and commitment to advancing our science puts the company in an excellent position to develop a new generation of impactful medicines for patients.”
Series A expansion to fund pipeline programs
Link’s previously announced $60 million Series A financing led by Johnson & Johnson, through its corporate venture capital organization, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., with participation from founding investors Samsara BioCapital and Sheatree Capital, as well as Wing Venture Capital and new investors including BMS, Kyowa Kirin, Sherpa Healthcare Partners, Western Technology Investment and the MD Anderson Cancer Focus Fund, was upsized to $90 million.
The additional capital will support clinical and preclinical development of additional logic gated CAR-T programs. Link’s second solid tumor indication is colorectal cancer, where the company intends to begin a first-in-human trial in 2027 using a novel target pair co-expressed in the majority of colorectal tumors but absent from normal healthy tissues. Additional CAR-T programs in solid and hematologic cancers are in earlier development and will be advanced internally or through partnerships.
“Link’s logic-gate platform can make CAR-T broadly viable in solid tumors,” said Dr. D’Elia. “A targeting approach that reliably distinguishes tumor from healthy tissue is what allows CAR-T to pursue in solid tumors the kind of deep and durable responses it has achieved in hematologic cancers. This financing lets us advance a pipeline built on that approach across additional tumor types.”
About Link Cell Therapies
Link Cell Therapies (“Link”) is a biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California, founded in 2022 by Robbie Majzner, M.D., and Crystal Mackall, M.D. at Stanford University, biotech entrepreneur Brian Slingerland, and Samsara BioCapital. Link’s proprietary logic-gating technology allows for safe targeting of multiple antigens that are co-expressed selectively on cancer cells, thereby reducing the risk of on-target, off-tumor toxicity. This enables discovery of an entirely new landscape of “clean” target pairs, and supports the development of next-generation CAR-T therapeutics for solid and hematologic cancers. Link’s team features industry-leading scientists collaborating with top-tier advisors and life science financial and strategic investors committed to improving outcomes for cancer patients. To learn more, please visit www.linkcelltx.com.
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