Cartography Biosciences Secures $67 Million Series B to Advance Precision Immunotherapy

Cartography Biosciences recently closed a $67 million Series B financing round to develop precision cancer immunotherapies targeting highly specific tumor antigens.

Cartography's Bold Goal: Map Cancer's Molecular Landscape

Cartography Biosciences, a South San Francisco-based oncology company, is advancing a pipeline of T-cell engaging bispecific and multi-specific antibody therapeutics. The company was founded by Stanford academics who recognized that traditional methods of cancer target discovery often miss opportunities for truly tumor-specific therapies. Their approach addresses a fundamental challenge in immuno-oncology: identifying drug targets that selectively attack cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.

Why Cancer Immunotherapy Needs Better Targets

Despite remarkable advances in cancer immunotherapy over the past two decades, the field faces significant limitations. Many existing therapies rely on targets discovered through classical methods, often lacking tumor specificity. This can result in serious toxicities when therapies inadvertently attack healthy cells expressing the same antigens.

Current CAR-T cell therapies, for example, benefit only a small fraction of cancer patients—primarily those with blood cancers—and can cause dangerous side effects including brain toxicity. Mouse models cannot accurately predict immunotherapy toxicity, so these problems often first emerge during phase 1 clinical trials. This creates an urgent need for more precise target identification methods that can improve therapeutic windows.

Revolutionary Platform Technology: ATLAS & SUMMIT

Cartography has developed two proprietary platforms—ATLAS and SUMMIT—that systematically evaluate therapeutic windows using genome-wide, single-cell expression data. The ATLAS platform is a curated, integrated dataset of single-cell RNA sequencing spanning over a thousand cell types across the healthy human body, combined with large-scale profiling of individual cells from patient tumors.

The SUMMIT platform applies algorithms and machine learning to identify targets or target pairs (antigens expressed on two different proteins) that are highly specific to cancer cells. By integrating multi-omic profiling methods, Cartography can discover novel target antigens that traditional approaches would miss. This computational and genomics approach draws inspiration from successful precision medicine paradigms in other diseases.

Strategic Collaboration with Gilead Sciences

In May 2024, Cartography announced a multi-year collaboration with Gilead Sciences focused on discovering and developing therapies for triple-negative breast cancer and lung adenocarcinoma. Under this partnership, Cartography's platforms will identify novel target antigens and antigen pairs, while Gilead will conduct all subsequent research, development, and commercialization.

Cartography received a $20 million upfront payment with additional near-term preclinical milestones, plus eligibility for development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, along with tiered royalties on net sales for each optioned target. This collaboration validates Cartography's target discovery capabilities and demonstrates growing institutional confidence in computational oncology approaches.

Lead Program: CBI-1214 for Colorectal Cancer

Cartography's lead program, CBI-1214, is a T-cell engager molecule targeting LY6G6D, a highly specific tumor antigen for treating colorectal cancer patients. The target exhibits minimal expression on healthy cells but is uniquely expressed within microsatellite stable (MSS) and microsatellite instability-low (MSI-L) subtypes of colorectal cancer. These subtypes represent the vast majority of colorectal cancer cases and remain a major area of unmet medical need.

CBI-1214 incorporates protein engineering features specifically designed to optimize anti-tumor activity while maintaining safety. The program is on track for an investigational new drug (IND) application submission by year-end, with Phase 1 trial enrollment targeted for early 2026.

Leadership & Expertise

Cartography is led by Kevin Parker, Ph.D., who serves as CEO and co-founder. Parker completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University working at the interface of genomics, immunology, and computational biology under the mentorship of Howard Chang and Ansu Satpathy. He holds a B.A. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard University and has co-authored papers in journals such as Cell and Science.

The company's scientific founding team includes Caleb Lareau, Ph.D., leading Platform Technologies; Maxwell Mumbach, Ph.D., heading the Discovery team; and Jeffrey Verboon, leading Computational Biology. Cartography's Scientific Advisory Board is chaired by CAR-T pioneer Carl H. June, M.D., and includes prominent experts such as Joseph A. Fraietta, Ph.D., Emma Lundberg, Ph.D., and Angela Shen, M.D., Dan Rock, Ph.D., serves as Chief Scientific Officer, and Dirk Nagorsen, M.D., leads clinical development as Chief Medical Officer.

Funding & Investor Backing

The Series B financing was led by new investor Pfizer Ventures, with participation from additional new investors including LG Corp, Amgen Ventures, Finchley H.V., Global BioAccess Fund, and Lotte Holdings CVC. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, 8VC, Wing Venture Capital, Catalio Capital Management, AME Cloud Ventures, ARTIS Ventures, and Gaingels also participated.

As part of the financing, Michael Baran, MBA, Ph.D., Partner at Pfizer Ventures, joined Cartography's Board of Directors, while Troy E. Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., was elected as Chairman of the Board. The company previously raised $57 million across seed and Series A rounds, bringing total capital raised to over $124 million.

Pipeline Expansion & Future Milestones

The Series B financing will support advancement of CBI-1214 into Phase 1 clinical trials and accelerate the next wave of programs from the ATLAS and SUMMIT platforms. Cartography is building an oncology pipeline of antibody-based therapies targeting tumors more precisely than existing treatments. The approach leverages proprietary data and machine learning to identify therapeutics against specific targets and target pairs.

Beyond CBI-1214, Cartography is advancing multiple programs targeting other cancer types. The company's integrated platform combining computational biology with experimental validation enables rapid identification and development of novel cancer targets.