
Synthetic Design Lab, a San Francisco, CA-based antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) company advancing its novel SYNTHBODY therapeutic platform against a range of cancer indications, raised $20M in funding.
The round was led by Playground Global and Godfrey Capital.
The company intends to use the funds to move its first therapeutic into clinical trials next year.
Led by CEO Daniel S. Chen, and CSO Ramesh Baliga, Ph.D., Synthetic Design Lab empowers antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with its SYNTHBODY therapeutic platform, which is engineered to optimize targeted payload delivery, potentially improving upon the efficacy, safety, and overall versatility of earlier ADCs.
Daniel S. Chen, M.D., Ph.D., is a leading physician-scientist and pioneer in the fields of cancer immunotherapy and protein engineering. A co-author of the renowned Cancer Immunity Cycle scientific framework, Dr. Chen spent over a decade at Genentech where he focused on the development of immune modulators, anti-angiogenics, and ADCs as targeted therapies. This included leading clinical development for atezolizumab (TECENTRIQ®), the first approved PD-L1 inhibitor, from pre-IND through clinical trials to multiple global approvals. He is the Immune Engineering Co-Chair of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), a founding partner at Genesis BioCapital, and sits on the Board of the Protein & Antibody Engineering Summit (PEGS BOSTON 2025).