Typewriter Therapeutics Launches With $56 Million Series A

Typewriter Therapeutics has emerged from stealth with $56 million in Series A financing to develop genetic medicines for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and severe genetic disorders.

The biotechnology company said the financing was led by AN Venture Partners and RA Capital Management, with participation from ANRI, Gemseki, and SBI US Gateway Fund.

Alongside the funding announcement, Typewriter appointed Matthew Stanton, PhD, as Chief Executive Officer, Leanne Peiser, DPhil, as Chief Scientific Officer, and Mikael Dolsten, MD, PhD, as a member of its board of directors.

The company is developing a genetic medicine platform based on Target-Primed Reverse Transcription (TPRT), a gene-insertion technology built around the R2 retrotransposon. The system was discovered by Typewriter’s academic co-founders and is designed to insert therapeutic genes into specific locations in the genome.

Typewriter’s approach uses two types of RNA. One RNA carries the therapeutic gene, while the other provides instructions to produce the R2 protein needed for gene insertion. After entering a cell, the two RNA components form a complex that places the therapeutic gene at a selected target site.

The company said the R2 machinery and its messenger RNA are then broken down, leaving the therapeutic gene in place. This could potentially allow genetic medicines to provide longer-lasting effects without relying on viral delivery.

Typewriter will initially focus on two areas: in vivo CAR T therapy and genetic liver diseases. The company plans to begin its first non-human primate (NHP) studies in late 2026.

Its in vivo CAR T approach is designed to modify a patient’s T cells directly inside the body. The company believes this could offer an alternative to traditional CAR T therapies, which require cells to be collected from a patient, genetically modified outside the body, and then returned to the patient.

Matthew Stanton said the company’s technology is designed to create genetic medicines that are durable and can potentially be re-dosed. The new financing will support the development of Typewriter’s first in vivo CAR T candidate following proof-of-concept studies in humanized mouse models.

Stanton brings experience from the gene and RNA medicine sector. Before joining Typewriter, he was a Venture Partner at Raven, RA Capital’s healthcare incubator. He previously spent seven years at Generation Bio, including roles as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientific Officer. He also served as Vice President and Head of Chemistry at Moderna Therapeutics, where his team worked on lipid nanoparticles for vaccine development.

New CSO Leanne Peiser brings more than two decades of research and development experience in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Her work has focused on immunology, immunotherapy, and cellular therapies, including autologous, allogeneic, and in vivo CAR T programs. Most recently, she was Executive Director of Translational Research, Cellular Therapy at Bristol Myers Squibb, where she supported the company’s CAR T portfolio.

Mikael Dolsten, a former Chief Scientific Officer and President of Worldwide Research & Development at Pfizer, has also joined Typewriter’s board. He said the company’s use of lipid nanoparticle-delivered RNA could potentially make in vivo CAR T therapy simpler to administer while allowing durable CAR expression and repeat dosing.

Typewriter’s leadership team also includes Jun Zhou, PhD, as Founder and Vice President of Discovery and Global Operations; Ari Friedland, PhD, as Vice President of Research; and Mayu Yoshikawa, PhD, as President of Typewriter Japan.

The company’s board includes Chair Ken Horne, Managing Partner at AN Venture Partners, and Laura Tadvalkar, PhD, Managing Director at RA Capital.

Typewriter has also added Stanley R. Riddell, MD, to its Scientific Advisory Board. Riddell is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington and a member of the Translational Science and Therapeutics Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He was involved in early clinical work involving therapeutic T cells and co-founded Juno Therapeutics, a company that became part of Bristol Myers Squibb.

With its new funding and experienced leadership team, Typewriter is now preparing to advance its TPRT platform toward its first development programs, with in vivo CAR T and genetic liver diseases as its initial focus areas.