Swedish Biotech Asgard Lands €30 Million to Turn Cancer Cells Into Immune Fighters
Asgard Therapeutics closed a €30 million Series A round on March 14, 2024, co-led by RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation's venture arm, with backing from Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden. The Lund-based startup is betting it can sidestep one of cell therapy's biggest headaches: manufacturing cells outside the body.
Instead, Asgard's lead candidate, AT-108, aims to reprogram tumor cells directly inside patients, transforming them into type 1 dendritic cells. These immune cells specialize in flagging cancer antigens and orchestrating anti-tumor responses. The company plans to push AT-108 toward IND-readiness within a couple of years, using the fresh capital to expand its R&D team and refine delivery platforms.
Rewriting Biology in Real Time
The therapy relies on a replication-deficient adenoviral vector loaded with three transcription factors: PU.1, IRF8 and BATF3. Injected directly into tumors, those molecular switches flip malignant cells into functional dendritic cells capable of presenting tumor-specific antigens to the immune system. Asgard reported preclinical data, published in Science on September 5, 2024, showing durable systemic responses in checkpoint-blockade-resistant models. Notably, the approach triggered abscopal effects, meaning tumors that weren't injected also shrank.
"Asgard's technology overcomes challenges faced by traditional cell therapies, enabling the recreation of desired functional immune cells directly inside the patient's body," CEO Cristiana Pires said when the funding was announced.
That promise has drawn a mix of corporate and institutional backers. Aleksei Zeifman of RV Invest joined Asgard's board as part of the round, calling the science "elegant" and the data package "robust." A JJDC representative also took a board seat. Johnson & Johnson Innovation had already invited Asgard into its JLABS EMEA incubator, a nod to the platform's potential.
Part of a Broader Bet on In Vivo Cell Engineering
BioPharma Dive noted at the time that the round placed Asgard in a small but growing cohort of companies pursuing in vivo cell therapies, including Capstan, Ensoma and Sana Biotechnology. The appeal is clear: if you can engineer immune cells where they're needed, you avoid the logistical gauntlet of extracting, modifying and reinfusing them. Whether that works at scale in humans remains an open question.
Asgard spun out of Lund University in 2018, emerging from the lab of co-founder Filipe Pereira, an associate professor whose academic group pioneered the dendritic cell reprogramming work. Pires leads the company day-to-day, with co-founder Fábio F. Rosa overseeing research as VP. Martin Bonde, the former CEO of Vaccibody (now Nykode), chairs the board.
The startup had previously raised €6 million in seed funding in late 2021, also co-led by Novo Holdings' Seeds division, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden. It has layered on non-dilutive grants from Horizon 2020, Eurostars and Vinnova along the way.
[Note: The draft referenced appointments and conference presentations with dates (March 2025, AACR 2026) that appear to postdate the primary funding announcement. These details have been omitted pending verification of their current relevance.]
Roschier represented the lead investors in the transaction, while Setterwalls advised Asgard.
