Cytospire: Broadening tumor killing with pan-γδ T cell engagers

With $83 million in fresh funding, London-based Cytospire is advancing a γδ T cell engager strategy designed to activate a broader pool of γδ T cells against tumors. The company’s bispecific and multispecific antibodies bind an epitope shared across γδ T cell subtypes in blood and tumor tissue, with the goal of increasing tumor-killing potency while limiting off-tumor toxicity.

Unlike the αβ T cells engaged by the more common modality of CD3-targeting bispecifics, γδ T cells do not rely on MHC-mediated antigen presentation. Instead, they recognize cellular stress through innate receptor-ligand interactions, a property that could enable γδ T cell-engagers to use tumor antigens that are not fully tumor-specific while reducing the risk of damage to healthy tissue, where such stress signals are less likely to be present...