{"entity":{"id":"azalea-therapeutics","kind":"company","name":"Azalea Therapeutics","aka":[],"tldr":"Azalea Therapeutics is trying to turn a patient's own T cells into cancer-fighting CAR-T cells inside the body, with an infusion, instead of collecting the cells and engineering them in a laboratory. Its first medicines, aimed at B-cell blood cancers and myeloma, had not reached human trials when it launched in 2025.","summary":"Azalea Therapeutics, based at UC Berkeley's Bakar Bio Labs, launched on 4 November 2025 with USD 82 million in seed and Series A financing led by Third Rock Ventures. It grew out of the Innovative Genomics Institute, and its co-founders named at launch were Jennifer Doudna, Michael Fischbach, Justin Eyquem and Jenny Hamilton, who is chief executive.\n\nIts platform uses enveloped delivery vehicles (EDVs), virus-like particles that find T cells and deliver CRISPR-Cas9 transiently, paired with a T-cell-tropic AAV template so that the CAR gene is written into a chosen site (the TRAC locus) rather than at random. The company says this removes the need for ex vivo manufacturing and lymphodepletion. The lead programme is a CD19 in vivo CAR-T for B-cell malignancies and autoimmune disease, followed by a BCMA programme for multiple myeloma and an undisclosed solid tumour programme. In March 2026 the company highlighted a Nature paper on in vivo site-specific TRAC-CAR T cell engineering, and in May 2026 it announced a late-breaking ASGCT presentation of first non-human primate data.","asOf":"2026-10-29","links":[{"label":"Official website","url":"https://azaleatx.com/"},{"label":"Launch press release, November 2025","url":"https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/azalea-therapeutics-launches-with-82-million-financing-to-redefine-precision-genomic-medicines-by-engineering-cells-directly-inside-each-patient"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["multiple-myeloma"],"sections":["cell-therapy","immunotherapy"],"technologies":["in-vivo-car-t","in-vivo-gene-editing-cancer"],"targets":["cd19","bcma"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Founding year not stated by the company. No clinical trial of an Azalea product was found when this record was written. The 12 to 18 month timeline to the clinic reported in trade coverage was not read in a primary source and is not recorded."],"hq":"Berkeley, CA","country":"US","companyType":"cell-therapy","website":"https://azaleatx.com/","stage":"startup","investors":["third-rock-ventures","ra-capital"],"funding":[{"round":"Seed and Series A","year":2025,"amountUsd":82000000,"source":"https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/azalea-therapeutics-launches-with-82-million-financing-to-redefine-precision-genomic-medicines-by-engineering-cells-directly-inside-each-patient","note":"Launch financing of USD 82 million in seed and Series A, including a USD 65 million Series A led by Third Rock Ventures with RA Capital Management, Yosemite and Sozo Ventures"}]},"route":"/companies/azalea-therapeutics/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"multiple-myeloma","kind":"cancer","name":"Multiple myeloma","route":"/cancers/multiple-myeloma/"}],"section":[{"id":"cell-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Cell Therapy","route":"/fronts/cell-therapy/"},{"id":"immunotherapy","kind":"section","name":"Immunotherapy","route":"/fronts/immunotherapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"in-vivo-gene-editing-cancer","kind":"technology","name":"In vivo base and prime editing for cancer","route":"/technologies/in-vivo-gene-editing-cancer/"},{"id":"in-vivo-car-t","kind":"technology","name":"In vivo CAR-T","route":"/technologies/in-vivo-car-t/"}],"target":[{"id":"bcma","kind":"target","name":"BCMA","route":"/targets/bcma/"},{"id":"cd19","kind":"target","name":"CD19","route":"/targets/cd19/"}],"company":[{"id":"ra-capital","kind":"company","name":"RA Capital Management","route":"/companies/ra-capital/"},{"id":"third-rock-ventures","kind":"company","name":"Third Rock Ventures","route":"/companies/third-rock-ventures/"}]}}