Monarch Therapeutics is developing personalized therapies for solid tumors.
Changing the standard from failed, one-size-fits-all therapies to modular, personalized treatments. Enabling a new hope for cancer patients.
Who we are. Monarch Therapeutics is an oncology company based on key enabling technology from the labs of Dr. Alex Deiters and Dr. Jason Lohmueller. We develop personalized therapies for solid tumors, and our lead program is in ovarian cancer.
Why solid tumors. Solid tumors caused more than 500,000 deaths in the US in 2024, and they remain difficult for CAR T therapy for two reasons: cells within the same tumor often display different antigens, so a single-target therapy can miss part of the tumor, and the tumor microenvironment suppresses the T cells sent to attack it.
Our approach. Monarch’s adaptor platform is designed to overcome these challenges. Multiple adaptors let the same CAR T cells target several antigens at once. Adaptors aimed at immunosuppressors in the tumor microenvironment drive penetration and persistence.
Conventional CAR T therapy engineers a patient’s immune cells outside the body. In vivo CAR approaches deliver the CAR instructions directly, so the engineering happens inside the patient. But these approaches still give every patient the same CAR target. Monarch combines in vivo delivery with an adaptor platform, so the target can be personalized for each individual patient.
Our approach delivers a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) in vivo. The CAR recognizes a tag rather than a tumor antigen. Separate adaptor molecules, each binding an antigen on one end and carrying the tag on the other, link the CAR T cells to the target.
We are building a catalog of modular adaptors that clinicians can mix and match into patient-specific combinations. In this long-term vision, each patient will get a therapy program tailored to their own tumor, using the same CAR T cells.
Developing computational approaches to speed up research and development work.
Our programs target solid tumors. The lead program is in ovarian cancer.
| Program | Indication | Modality | DiscoveryPreclinicalPhase 1Phase 2+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead program | Ovarian cancer Lead indication | In vivo CAR | |
| Expansion | Additional solid tumors Specific indications to be named | In vivo CAR |
A team with deep cell therapy development expertise across all functions that drive success, including chemistry, manufacturing, business development, IP, legal, finance, and clinical development.
