Your donation may qualify for a matching gift. Check your employee giving portal for eligibility and details.
Mongoose Bio is working to overcome two of the biggest challenges in using engineered T-cell therapies against solid tumors: finding safe, widely shared targets and creating T cells that can remain active long enough to defeat cancer. Its lead program, MGB-1, is advancing toward a first-in-human Phase 1 trial, while its second program, MGB-2, targets Brachyury in chordoma and potentially several more common cancers. Mongoose has already secured $10.6 million in non-dilutive CPRIT funding, and every private philanthropic dollar can effectively unlock 2X in matched funding. Your support can help fund clinical development, GMP manufacturing, and the next steps toward bringing these promising therapies to patients. Help Mongoose Bio cross the Valley of Death and turn promising T-cell science into new options for people with cancer.
Engineered T-cell therapies have already delivered durable, complete remissions in blood cancers, and the August 2024 FDA approval of TECELRA, the first TCR-T therapy for a solid tumor, proved that this approach can work beyond blood cancer. Yet nearly 90% of cancer patients have solid tumors, and two major challenges remain: finding safe, broadly shared targets and preventing engineered T cells from becoming exhausted before they can eliminate the tumor.
Mongoose Bio is tackling both challenges. Its Immunopeptidome Discovery Platform has identified 20,000+ mass-spectrometry-confirmed T-cell targets, with its top four potentially covering more than 80% of the global population. Its epigenetic memory T-cell technology creates longer-lasting cells that have persisted for more than 18 months in patients. The company is initially targeting chordoma, a rare cancer driven by Brachyury (TBXT), a target also found in common cancers including lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal – creating the potential to solve a rare-cancer challenge while opening a path to treat far larger patient populations.
The most important near-term milestone is first-in-human dosing of MGB-1 (CT antigen), Mongoose Bio’s lead program. A Phase 1a clinical trial at MD Anderson is targeted for 2026–2027, testing a single IV infusion in 18 patients without the need for toxic lymphodepletion. The company is already preparing for the next stage, with the Phase 1b protocol finalized and IND-enabling work underway.
At the same time, funding will advance MGB-2 (TBXT/Brachyury), the company’s second program, initially focused on chordoma but with potential applications in lung, breast, and colorectal cancers. Because both programs can leverage the same manufacturing and clinical infrastructure, advancing them together can accelerate development while reducing the additional cost of bringing each program to patients.
Mongoose Bio has already secured $10.6 million in non-dilutive funding from CPRIT, awarded through a competitive oncology program, and has raised approximately $2 million to date. The company is now seeking an additional $8–10 million to complete a $20 million program round. Importantly, every private philanthropic dollar invested is effectively matched 2:1 by government funding already secured, significantly multiplying the impact of new support.
The funding will be focused on the milestones that matter most: ~45% will support clinical development and the Phase 1a/1b trials for MGB-1; ~30% will fund GMP manufacturing scale-up; ~15% will advance MGB-2, the company’s second cancer program; and ~10% will support continued target discovery and core operations. Together, these investments are designed to move Mongoose Bio’s lead therapy toward patients while building the manufacturing and scientific foundation for its next program.
Mongoose Bio has already assembled the capital, intellectual property, clinical expertise, manufacturing capabilities, and leadership needed to move its programs toward patients.
The science has already shown what is possible. Engineered T-cell therapies have produced durable, complete remissions in blood cancers, and the 2024 FDA approval of the first TCR-T therapy for a solid tumor demonstrated that this approach can work beyond blood cancer. The challenge now is bridging the gap between scientific validation and the clinical milestones needed to attract larger institutional investment—the very “Valley of Death” that Music Beats Cancer exists to help close.
If MGB-1 and MGB-2 stall in this gap, patients could lose access to promising targeted therapies with few alternatives. That includes patients with chordoma, a rare and devastating cancer with no approved systemic therapy, as well as patients with breast, lung, gastric, esophageal, prostate, and colorectal cancers whose tumors carry the same validated targets. More broadly, the field could lose the opportunity to demonstrate that engineered T-cell therapy can become a repeatable platform for treating solid tumors—not just a one-off success. Closing this funding gap means helping move proven science into the clinic, where it can ultimately make a difference for patients who urgently need new options.
Abu Dhabi Global Health Week Conference
4 Houston life science startups secure over $40M in CPRIT funding
Houston startups dominate ‘most-promising’ companies announcement at annual event
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Cassian Yee is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Mongoose Bio. He is an Endowed Professor of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he holds the Kenneth D. Muller Professorship in Melanoma Research and directs the Program for T Cell-Based Therapies (ProTCT), encompassing both the Solid Tumor Cell Therapy program and the TCR-based Therapeutics Program.
Dr. Yee earned his M.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1986, completed clinical training in internal medicine at Stanford University, and undertook postdoctoral research fellowships at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington before joining MD Anderson in 2013. Over more than 20 years, he has pioneered Endogenous T Cell (ETC) therapy derived from a patient’s own peripheral blood, including the first-in-class use of tetramer-guided cell sorting to isolate tumor-reactive T cells, and led the first clinical trial to combine adoptive T-cell therapy with immune checkpoint blockade — producing durable, complete remissions in patients with metastatic solid tumors. This body of work forms the direct scientific foundation for Mongoose Bio’s epigenetic memory T-cell engineering platform.
Dr. Yee co-founded Immatics (Nasdaq: IMTX), a T-cell receptor therapeutics company that completed its IPO in 2021. He has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed publications, cited over 21,000 times, and holds 15+ patents in cellular therapy and antigen discovery. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2009, one of medicine’s most selective honor societies for physician-scientists.
President, Chief Executive Officer
Neil Warma serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Board Director of Mongoose Bio, a role he assumed in 2024. He brings more than 25 years of experience building and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies globally, and has raised more than $800M in his career while leading IPOs and acquisitions across three continents.
Immediately prior to Mongoose Bio, Warma served as interim CEO of ProMIS Neurosciences before becoming CEO, Representative Director, and Board Member of Genexine, Inc., a publicly traded, Seoul-based biopharmaceutical company, where he led the company’s restructuring and the commercialization of its first products. Earlier in his career, he was U.S. General Manager of I-Mab Biopharma (Nasdaq: IMAB), where he drove the expansion of the company’s U.S. operations, helped establish its San Diego research facilities, and was a key contributor to I-Mab’s U.S. IPO. Before that, he was President, CEO, and Director of Opexa Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPXA), a cellular-therapy company developing treatments for autoimmune disease, where he orchestrated partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, and President, CEO, and Director of Viron Therapeutics, a protein-based therapeutics company. He began his industry career in senior global marketing and international pharma policy roles at Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ Basel headquarters, and co-founded and successfully sold MedExact, a health-technology company.
Warma currently serves on the boards of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and ProMIS Neurosciences. He holds an honors Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from the University of Toronto and an International MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University
