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Tikva Allocell, a Singapore-based biotechnology startup developing engineered, allogeneic (donor-derived) cell therapies for adult and pediatric patients with solid tumours, has announced the closing of an $8 million Series A financing led by Kantharos Capital.
Proceeds will fund IND-enabling activities and a planned year-end 2026 Investigational New Drug (IND) submission for TAVST01, Tikva’s lead candidate for B7-H3-positive solid tumours. Subject to regulatory clearance, the company plans to initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with advanced B7-H3-positive cancer at sites in Singapore and the United States.
TAVST01 targets B7-H3, a protein expressed across a broad range of difficult-to-treat solid tumors, including lung, breast, prostate, pancreatic, and pediatric cancers. Unlike conventional donor-derived cell therapies, which a patient’s immune system often clears before they can work, TAVST01 is built from Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-specific T cells - immune cells the body naturally sustains - and is engineered to resist that rejection, with preclinical potential both to kill tumor cells directly and to remodel the immunosuppressive microenvironment that has limited cell therapies in solid tumours.
Tikva’s therapies are built on the ALLO SerpinB9 EBVST platform — an allogeneic, virus-specific T-cell technology licensed exclusively from Baylor College of Medicine and further enhanced through Tikva’s proprietary protein-engineering strategies. These cells are equipped with a B7-H3–targeting receptor and an optimised form of SerpinB9, a natural inhibitor of granzyme B, the enzyme immune cells use to kill their targets.
