AvenCell derives its name from the French word “avenir” to reflect the aim to be the FUTURE of cell therapy. AvenCell is building a truly transformative cell therapy company that targets difficult-to-treat cancers, with its lead programs focusing on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and additional programs targeting other hematological malignancies. AvenCell was formed with the goal to create truly allogeneic cells that persist as long or longer than autologous therapies and develop a universal and switchable construct that allows complete control and target redirection of T cells after they are infused into a patient. Integration of these two platforms allows for complete separation of the manufacturing of cells from ultimate patient and cancer target, thus providing significant scalability potential at orders of magnitude more efficient than current approaches.
Sector: Life Sciences
Natasha Rodgers, MB BChir
Natasha Rodgers is an Associate in F-Prime’s London team, working across the life sciences sub-sectors including therapeutics and medical technology. Prior to joining F-Prime, Natasha was an associate consultant at Bain & Company. She also worked as a junior doctor in Edinburgh and Oxford with a particular focus area in Intensive Care. Natasha holds an MB BChir from Cambridge University and an A.B. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University.
Clare Bernard
Clare Bernard is a Venture Partner at F-Prime. She is focused on new company creation at the intersection of tech and the life sciences. Prior to F-Prime she led data science and software efforts at the Broad Institute, managing the team that developed several widely used open-source bioinformatics tools and software platforms including the Terra platform and GATK. She also led product and engineering at Tamr, a Cambridge-based software company that uses machine learning to integrate large datasets.
She received her B.S. in math and physics from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. from Boston University for research in particle physics conducted at the Large Hadron Collider.
Pioneering Progress: The FARAPULSE™ Story
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) Challenges and Treatments
Currently, atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common form of irregular heart rhythm (also known as an arrhythmia) – impacting 40 million people globally1. It is projected that by 2030, the United States alone will grow to have 12.1 million people suffering from AF1. In addition to being a lifelong challenge, AF is a progressive disease that can be fatal, as it is linked to a risk of blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other serious complications2.
If not addressed, initial symptoms may become more frequent and then permanent, yet only a small fraction of the population (about 15% of cases in the U.S.3) are treated for the root cause of the disease. Most patients are on anti-coagulants or other drugs to prevent clots and strokes; however, those medications have potentially dangerous side effects including bleeding, gastrointestinal issues, hematomas, and more.
“Therapy for AF – a condition that is now recognized as a worldwide epidemic – did not even exist 25 years ago, and we are still in the early stages of treating or even preventing AF,” said Robert Weisskoff, PhD, Senior Partner at F-Prime. “There was a clear need to improve upon existing methods and train an entire workforce of medical professionals to conduct a new procedure that offers patients rapid, safe, and durable results before the disease manifests permanently.”
When F-Prime met the Farapulse team, there were two existing interventions to treat AF – burning or freezing, both with considerable drawbacks. The first option, radiofrequency (RF)-based ablation burns small regions to reverse AF. It was the first technology introduced commercially, but it is lengthy process and requires highly skilled medical professionals. The second option, cryotherapy ablation (cryo), freezes those same regions. Cryo can be completed more quickly but lacks the same precision and control. Both techniques pose risks such as permanent damage to nearby tissues, such as the diaphragm or esophagus, and narrowing of the pulmonary veins. While these risks are relatively small, their potential consequences can be devastating.
Harnessing Technology for Targeted Solutions
In search of a better method to address AF, Steven Mickelsen, MD at the University of Iowa leveraged a technology known as pulsed field ablation (PFA), initially meant to treat cancer. PFA utilizes a high-voltage, low-energy source in a minimally invasive manner to selectively ablate targeted cardiac tissue without heating or freezing. PFA can selectively kill specific cells within a very well-defined region and offers a reliable, one-time intervention that reduces the number of repeat procedures that could be required. The team at Farapulse, led by Allan Zingeler, Raju Viswanathan, PhD, and an experienced MedTech R&D group, adapted the technology into a catheter-based approach that leveraged many of the same advantages of RF and cryo. However, PFA offers a quicker and equally effective treatment, while avoiding the potentially negative repercussions. Additionally, it is simpler to learn than other treatment options, facilitating wider adoption.
The effectiveness of PFA was validated in clinical trials (including a large randomized pivotal trial for the FDA in the U.S.), demonstrating it to be as safe and reliable as conventional thermal ablation methods. Real-world data from the MANIFEST-17K registry, presented at the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Scientific Sessions, further underscored its safety profile across more than 17,000 patients. Building on this success, FARAPULSE™, has since revolutionized atrial fibrillation treatment as the world’s clinical leader in PFA, with over 70,000 patients treated to date. Boston Scientific continues to be enthusiastic about expanding FARAPULSE into new markets, including China and Japan, targeting the latter half of 2024.
Transforming Healthcare with FARAPULSE™
F-Prime was among the earliest institutional investors alongside Boston Scientific, to recognize the promise of this transformative approach to treat AF. Boston Scientific identified a significant market opportunity and provided funding for Mickelsen’s original concept, aimed at competing with devices used by cardiac surgeons to treat AF during valve replacement procedures. Throughout the development stages, F-Prime played an integral role, particularly during the transition from an extracardiac to an intravascular approach, ensuring the product’s progression.
Weisskoff attributes the success of the product to a “small but highly experienced team. Our contributions involved helping them navigate fundraising, IP, and personnel dynamics, as well as develop an exit strategy before the U.S.-based pivotal trial.” He also emphasizes that the strategic timing of involving Boston Scientific, which later acquired the company, and the careful structuring of their engagement, were crucial in successfully navigating FARAPULSE through to approval.
Looking beyond AF, PFA technology holds promise for treating other conditions such as type 2 diabetes, where it aims to enhance glycemic control and restore insulin sensitivity. It may also have implications for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – potentially improving respiratory function by widening bronchial tubes. Advancements in PFA-based technologies also have the potential to lead to more selective cancer treatments. Through ongoing support, F-Prime is committed to backing innovative companies like Farapulse that are reshaping the landscape of medicine and are working toward setting a new standard-of-care for diverse medical needs.
- Hearth Rhythm Society
- Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Boston Scientific Crosses the FDA Finish Line with Farapulse, Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry
Bobby Gaspar, M.D., Ph.D.
Bobby Gaspar is a Venture Partner with F-Prime based in London. Bobby is a world-renowned scientist and physician and accomplished strategic and organizational leader with more than 25 years of experience in medicine and biotechnology. He is one of the principal scientific founders and current chief executive officer of Orchard Therapeutics, a global gene therapy leader recently acquired by Kyowa Kirin with the goal of accelerating the delivery of new gene therapies to patients around the globe. Bobby has been a pioneer in gene therapy and the evolution of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy technology—including some of the first studies in patients with severe primary immune deficiencies—bringing it from some of the first studies in patients into late-stage clinical trials. His unparalleled expertise and deep relationships with key physicians and treatment centers around the world are integral to Orchard’s efforts to identify patients with metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) and other severe genetic conditions through targeted disease education, early diagnosis and comprehensive newborn screening.
Bobby was named to the inaugural TIME100 Health list in 2024, recognizing him as one of the world’s most influential individuals impacting human health. In addition to his role at Orchard, Bobby also serves as the chair of the board of directors at Eligo Biosciences, a privately-held biotech company expanding the scope of genetic medicines through gene-editing of the microbiome. He is also a venture partner at F-Prime, a global venture creation and investment firm with $4.5 billion under management.
Bobby is an honorary professor of pediatrics and immunology at the University College London (UCL) Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and has led multiple clinical trials that have shown that gene therapy can successfully correct the genetic defect in immune deficiencies. He studied medicine and surgery at Kings College in London before completing his Ph.D. at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.
Nicholas Haining, BM, BCh
Nicholas Haining, BM, BCh is a Venture Partner at F-Prime based in the Cambridge office. Nicholas is also the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Arsenal Biosciences, a cell therapy company based in South San Francisco.
During his time as an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, his lab defined some of the key transcriptional and epigenetic regulators of T cell exhaustion and used in vivo genetic screens to identify immune vulnerabilities of cancer cells in mouse models. Nicholas’ clinical expertise is in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and he worked on the bone marrow transplant team at Boston Children’s Hospital for nearly twenty years.
More recently, he served as Vice-President, Discovery Oncology and Immunology at Merck Research Laboratories, where he led a multi-site, multidisciplinary team developing innovative approaches to identify therapies for cancer and immune diseases.
Nicholas was elected into the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering.
As a physician-scientist, immunologist and drug developer, Nicholas received his undergraduate and medical degree from Oxford University, UK. He subsequently completed his medical training in Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Amber Therapeutics
Amber Therapeutics is developing Amber-UI, a breakthrough adaptive neuromodulation therapy to treat women suffering with mixed urinary incontinence with the hope of transforming the clinical outcome and quality of life of a large untreated population. Amber-UI runs on the Company’s fully implantable Picostim system that targets the pudendal nerve to both stimulate and sense physiological responses. The therapy is configurable to the individual’s need and can respond dynamically to different events, adapting as needed between modes of operation. Amber’s technology platform is highly versatile and can be used to explore other novel therapy applications in both the pelvis and the broader nervous system, demonstrated by the work being carried out by the Company’s academic partnerships.
Xaira Therapeutics
Xaira Therapeutics is an integrated biotechnology company driving advances in artificial intelligence to learn the language of life and transform how we treat disease. The company seeks to rethink the drug discovery and development process from end-to-end by bringing together leading talent across three core areas: machine learning research to better understand biology, expansive data generation to power new models, and robust therapeutic product development to treat disease.
Metsera
Metsera is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company accelerating the next generation of medicines for obesity and metabolic diseases. Metsera is advancing a broad portfolio of oral and injectable incretin, non-incretin and combination therapies with potential best-in-class profiles to address multiple therapeutic targets and meet the future needs of a rapidly evolving weight loss treatment landscape.
nChromaBio
nChroma Bio is a pioneering biotechnology company redefining the future of in vivo targeted genetic medicine to treat a wide array of diseases and bring cures to patients. The company’s integrated product engine tackles significant limitations of existing genetic medicine approaches by enabling safe, precise and specific in vivo delivery. nChroma’s near clinical-stage development candidate, CRMA-1001, is a liver-targeted therapy in development as a potential functional cure for chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis D that leverages the power of epigenetics, nature’s innate mechanism for gene regulation. Guided by a world-class team at the forefront of genetic medicine, founded by renowned pioneers in the field, and supported by top-tier investors, the company is uniquely positioned to deliver groundbreaking therapies with programmable tissue specificity, unlocking highly potent, durable and targeted gene regulation for the liver and beyond.