Good day. A persistent problem hampers the widening arsenal of weapons against cancer: the difficulty of steering their destructive powers to tumors and away from healthy tissue.

Startup Link Cell Therapies this week said it has raised $92 million in seed and Series A funding to pursue its strategy for guiding one type of drug, CAR-T immunotherapy, precisely to cancers.

CAR-T treatment involves collecting a patient’s own immune cells and engineering them to fight tumors. These cells, when given back to the patient, recognize a specific marker on the surface of tumor cells.

CAR-T therapy has proved effective in certain blood cancers, but against more-common solid tumors—such as kidney or colorectal cancer—it has so far fallen short.

One hang-up: almost all proteins on the surface of solid tumor cells also reside on the surface of healthy cells, said Abe Bassan, a partner with Samsara BioCapital, a founding investor in Link, and the startup’s interim chief executive.

“If you’re trying to target solid tumors, there aren’t really good ways to tell apart what’s a solid tumor cell and what’s a healthy cell,” Bassan added.

South San Francisco, Calif.-based Link may have found a way. Its approach involves targeting two markers instead of one. The company has identified pairs of markers that are found on tumor cells but rarely appear together on healthy ones.

Link, advancing technology from Stanford University, also hijacks the internal machinery of T cells so they only fire when they see the desired combination of markers, said co-founder Dr. Robbie Majzner.

Link, which expects its approach would also work against blood cancers, is focusing initially on renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer.

Link plans to begin clinical trials in 2026 in renal cell carcinoma. Its financing will carry it until late 2028, Bassan said, long enough to generate clinical proof-of-concept data in kidney cancer.

And now on to the news...

Indictment. The Justice Department indicted Adderall startup Done Global late Tuesday, a month after its founder and top doctor were both convicted for a conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

• The indictment alleges that Done and a sister company, Mindful Mental Wellness, provided easy access to stimulants such as Adderall without a legitimate medical purpose, and conspired to defraud insurers and obstruct justice.
   
• The indictment alleges that Mindful served as a “reskin” of Done in order to circumvent pharmacies that had blocked prescriptions by Done-affiliated clinicians. The companies are still operating and have served tens of thousands of patients.
   
• If convicted, the companies could continue operating but would likely have to do so under court supervision. They also likely would face fines and a requirement to improve compliance.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, one of the nation’s top cancer centers, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle fraud allegations, including its scientists’ use of inaccurate or altered data and images in grant-funded biomedical research. Those images and data were also used in grant applications that resulted in federal funding for additional research, according to the U.S. Justice Department and Dana-Farber. In a civil settlement made public Tuesday, the Harvard Medical School affiliate resolved a lawsuit contending some of its scientists used National Institutes of Health grant funding to support publishing more than a dozen articles in scientific journals between 2014 and 2024 that contained misrepresented data and images. Some publications and grant applications included duplicated images, or images that were rotated, magnified or stretched.

Funds

S3 Ventures raised $250 million for its eighth fund to continue investing in business software and healthcare technology startups. The Austin, Texas-based firm also promoted Eric Engineer and Aaron Perman to general partner.

Medical technology company Olympus said its corporate venture capital arm raised $150 million for its second fund to focus on areas including gastrointestinal, urology and respiratory.

MBX Capital has raised $100 million to date to invest in early-stage startups addressing the rise of chronic disease driven by environmental toxins and synthetic exposures.

Women’s health-focused FemHealth Ventures closed its second fund with $65 million in commitments.

People

Core Innovation Capital appointed Kyle Treige as a senior associate. He was most recently co-founder and chief operating officer of Pioneer.

Patient navigation platform DexCare said Rakshay Jain joined the company as chief product officer. He was previously at Innovaccer.

Chai Discovery, a San Francisco-based AI startup that predicts and reprograms the interactions between biochemical molecules, scored $130 million in Series B funding co-led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. Annie Lamont from Oak HC/FT and Hemant Taneja from General Catalyst will join Chai’s board.

Aeovian Pharmaceuticals, a Berkeley, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical startup, completed a $55 million Series B round to fund a Phase 2 study of its lead development candidate in tuberous sclerosis complex-related refractory epilepsy. Luma Group and CTI Life Sciences Fund led the investment, which included participation from Foresite Capital, Sofinnova Investments and others.

Nanit, a New York-based developer of monitors providing baby health intelligence, secured a $50 million growth capital investment. Springcoast Partners led the funding, which included participation from Upfront Ventures.

Codoxo, a Duluth, Ga.-based healthcare payment technology startup, nabbed $35 million in Series C funding led by CVS Health Ventures.

Valerie Health, a San Francisco-based physician front office automation provider, landed $30 million in Series A funding. Redpoint Ventures led the investment, which included contributions from General Catalyst, BoxGroup, Karman Ventures and others.

Drive Health, a Gilbert, Ariz.-based clinical workflow automation provider, collected $15 million in strategic funding from investors including Vitalis Ventures.

Clarity Pediatrics, a San Francisco-headquartered pediatric chronic-care provider, grabbed $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Jackson Square Ventures.

Wearlinq, a San Francisco-based provider of wearable health monitoring and diagnosis technology, secured $14 million in Series A financing from investors including AIX Ventures.

Leona Health, an AI co-pilot for doctors built on WhatsApp, gathered $14 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Investors including General Catalyst, Accel and others also participated. The company is headquartered in Mexico City and San Francisco.

Lucis, a Paris-based preventive healthcare startup, closed an $8.5 million seed investment. General Catalyst led the round, which saw additional support from Y Combinator, Kima Ventures and others.

Auxira Health, a Columbia, Md.-based virtual cardiology startup, was seeded with a $7.8 million investment co-led by Route 66 Ventures and Abundant Venture Partners.

• Heart Attacks, Lung Conditions Jumped After Los Angeles Wildfires
   
• Research Finds Benefits From Cutting Saturated Fats, as RFK Jr. Promotes Them
   
• Sanofi Shares Fall After Multiple Sclerosis Drug Gets Hit by Double Setback
   
• What to Know About the Use of U.S. Surrogacy by China’s Billionaires
   
• Republicans Relive Healthcare Nightmare as Midterms Loom

• The astonishing embryo models of Jacob Hanna (MIT Technology Review)
   
• A distorted mind-body connection may explain common mental illnesses (Scientific American)
   
• In the vast expanses of Indian country, broadband gaps create health gaps, too (KFF Health News)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier, Zachary Cole and Brian Gormley. 

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

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