Checking in on a $1.6 billion ‘startup’

Remember Rubius Therapeutics, the company that went from zero to a multibillion-dollar valuation in just five years despite having no drugs in clinical trials? Yesterday, it gave the world a first detailed look at its work in cancer.

As STAT’s Adam Feuerstein reports, Rubius presented some preclinical data backing up its claim that it can re-engineer red blood cells to stimulate the immune system and attack tumors. The idea is to equip those cells with molecules that gin up an immune system response, and, according to three presentations at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in Atlanta, it works in mice.

Rubius’s cancer therapies are still about a year away from human trials, the company said, but its presentation at AACR serves as a progress report for a company that once preferred to keep quiet. “This is our coming-out party,” CEO Pablo Cagnoni said.

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