Singapore-based Tikva Allocell, a biotechnology company developing engineered, off-the-shelf allogeneic T-cell therapies for solid tumors, has closed an USD 8 million Series A financing round. Funds are earmarked to support development of TAVST01, its lead B7-H3-targeted CAR-T candidate for solid tumors, including completion of IND-enabling activities and a planned year-end 2026 IND submission to the US FDA.
The financing was led by Kantharos Capital, a boutique private equity firm. No additional participants were disclosed. This marks Tikva's first institutional financing; the company's earlier activity consisted of an exclusive technology license from Baylor College of Medicine in March 2024 and acceptance into the Johnson & Johnson Innovation–JLABS incubator network the same month. Chief executive Ivan Horak said the Tikva Allocell Series A funding positions the company to complete IND-enabling studies and move TAVST01 toward regulatory submission.
TAVST01 is an off-the-shelf, EBV-specific T-cell therapy engineered to target B7-H3, a protein broadly expressed across lung, breast, prostate, pancreatic and pediatric solid tumors. Rather than using conventional donor T cells, which are typically cleared by a patient's immune system before they can act, Tikva's approach uses Epstein-Barr virus-specific T cells that the body naturally sustains long-term following prior infection. These cells are engineered with a B7-H3-targeting receptor and an optimized form of SerpinB9, a natural granzyme B inhibitor, intended to help the cells resist immune rejection while limiting graft-versus-host disease through minimal gene editing.
The company's ALLO SerpinB9 EBVST platform is licensed exclusively from Baylor College of Medicine and was co-founded by BCM researchers including Malcolm Brenner, founding director of the university's Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, along with Cliona Rooney and Helen Heslop, who serve as scientific advisors to Tikva. Their prior academic research on virus-specific T-cell biology underpins the platform's core mechanism.