Sniper Therapeutics

Challenge and Solution: At Sniper Therapeutics, we tackle one of the most pressing challenges in engineered T cell therapies for solid tumors: the ineffectiveness of a large proportion of T cells in such therapies which fail to locate and destroy tumor cells, limiting their ability to improve patient outcomes. With our platform technology, ‘SniperID’, we have identified a subset of engineered T cells with superior tumor killing capabilities, which we call ‘Sniper’ T cells, and developed a novel method to create best-in-class engineered T cell therapies containing only these effective cells.

Our approach leverages novel biomarkers to selectively enrich Sniper T cells, resulting in therapies with superior tumor homing and maximized tumor destruction capabilities. Our preclinical studies demonstrate that Sniper T cell enrichment leads to increased tumor killing in patient-derived organoid models of multiple solid tumor indications.

Company evolution: Sniper Therapeutics will incorporate as a cell therapy company in 2025 and aims to become a clinical-stage company by 2029.  Our first Sniper T cell therapy will be developed for Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG), an aggressive and incurable pediatric brain tumor. As our cell selection approach can be universally applied to any engineered T cell therapy across a broad range of solid tumor indications, we plan to expand the development of Sniper T cell therapies to additional solid tumor indications in the future. Sniper Therapeutics’ cell selection approaches, Sniper T cells and DMG organoid model are covered under two recently filed, ongoing patent applications.

Team: Sniper Therapeutics is founded by Amber Wezenaar (CEO) and Dr. Anne Rios (CSO), from the Dream3DLab led by Dr. Anne Rios at the Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in Utrecht and are affiliated with Oncode Institute. Supported by seasoned advisors from the fields of pharma, biotech, and venture capital, Sniper Therapeutics is strategically positioned to reach the clinic in less than 5 years.