Link Cell Therapies Launches with $60M Series A to Advance Logic-Gated CAR-T for Solid Tumors

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA – December 15, 2025 — Link Cell Therapies, a Stanford University spinout, today announced its launch with a $60 million Series A financing round dedicated to developing potent and highly precise CAR-T therapies for a wide range of tumors, including solid cancers.

The financing was led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., and included strong backing from founding investors Samsara BioCapital and Sheatree Capital, along alongside strategic investors Bristol Myers Squibb and Kyowa Kirin. The Series A brings the company’s total funding since its 2022 founding to $92 million.

Pioneering Precision with Logic-Gating Technology

Link’s core mission addresses the primary safety limitation of current CAR-T therapeutics: the difficulty of finding cancer-specific targets that are not also expressed on healthy, vital tissues.

The company is advancing a proprietary “logic-gating technology” developed by co-founders Robbie Majzner, M.D., and Crystal Mackall, M.D., during their time at Stanford University.

“Link is advancing a technology… that allows for logic-gated CAR-T cell control,” explained Dr. Majzner, now an associate professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. “The Link-based CAR activates and kills target cells only when a combination of antigens is co-localized on the tumor, thereby bypassing normal tissues that express only one of those targets.”

This increased precision is designed to enable the safer deployment of powerful CAR-T cells by creating novel “clean” target pairs for both solid and liquid cancers.

Pipeline Focus on Renal and Colorectal Cancers

Link is rapidly moving its programs toward the clinic:

• Lead Program (LNK001): Currently in preclinical development for renal cell carcinoma (RCC), with Phase 1 dosing anticipated to start next year (2026).

• Second Program: Targeting colorectal cancer, slated for in-human testing in 2027.

The platform’s safety features are expected to allow for potent CAR-T therapies to attack difficult-to-treat solid tumors while sparing healthy tissue.