Quell Therapeutics

Founded: 2019
CEO: Iain McGill
Founders: Giovanna Lombardi
Marc Martinez-Llordella
Alberto Sanchez-Fueyo
Hans Stauss
Emma Morris
Elmar Jaeckel
% Shareholding: 37%
Stage: Pre-clinical
Number of employees: 110+
Raised in Series B in November 2021: $156m

Unless stated all financials at 31 December 2022

Quell website

Quell Therapeutics was founded with the aim of developing engineered T regulatory (Treg) cell therapies. Tregs are a subset of T cells with the potential to downregulate the immune system.

Quell was founded in partnership with six prominent immunological experts from King’s College London, University College London and Hannover Medical School, and is led by Iain McGill, a seasoned pharmaceutical and biotech executive.

Tregs are capable of down regulating the immune system by ‘putting on a brake’ to prevent over activation and resultant pathological immune responses.

Quell is employing proprietary and innovative technologies to genetically enhance Tregs, to target them to particular sites within the body, for example to the liver in their lead programme in liver transplantation. These engineered Tregs have the potential to control unwanted immune activity which may enable the treatment of patients with autoimmune and inflammatory disease as well as the potential to prevent organ rejection without taking immunosuppressive medication; making transplantation the full cure it was always intended to be.

Investment thesis

Potential pipeline to treat serious, chronic conditions mediated by the immune system
Potential to be first-in-class in CAR Tregs; an early mover in the space

Unmet medical need

Current standard of care for prevention of solid organ transplant rejection is life-long immunosuppression which results in an array of serious long-term side effects, such as kidney toxicity, infections and cancer, significantly impacting patient quality of life*

Market opportunity

15,000 liver transplants p.a across US and Europe**

Key risks

Highly innovative concept in an emerging space
Complex manufacturing

* https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/clinical-investigation-immunosuppressants-solid-organ-transplantation

** Source: OPTN/SRTR 2016 Annual Data report: Liver; EDQM Volume 20 2015

Key risks are Syncona team view

Research Pre-clinical Clinical

Quell Therapeutics

QEL-001 - Liver transplant

Syncona team

Martin Murphy

Martin is Chair of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. He co-founded Syncona in 2012 alongside The Wellcome Trust. Since then, Martin has been closely involved in the foundation and development of multiple Syncona companies, including: Achilles Therapeutics, Autolus Therapeutics, OMass Therapeutics, Quell Therapeutics, Anaveon, Resolution Therapeutics, and Clade Therapeutics. He is Chairman of Quel…

View Martin's biography

Position

Chair

Qualification

PhD

Elisa Petris

Elisa is a Lead Partner of Syncona Investment Management Ltd. She is a Director on the Board of Quell Therapeutics and was previously on the Board of former portfolio companies Blue Earth Diagnostics and Neogene. She was closely involved in the foundation of both Quell and Blue Earth, including their operational and strategic set-up. Previously, she was a Senior Associate at Michel Dyens & Co.…

View Elisa's biography

Position

Board member

Qualification

PhD