Shubh Gupta: Turning Immune Cells into Marathon Runners Against Cancer

You spent over a decade in some of the most innovative cell therapy companies in the world. What finally pushed you to start Immumem?

My journey didn’t begin in a boardroom — it started at the lab bench.

I spent 12 years at leaders like Fate Therapeutics and Caribou Biosciences, where we saw immune cells do incredible things in the dish. They would obliterate tumor cells. But in solid tumors, that response would fizzle out within days. The cells would burn out, disappear, and the cancer would come roaring back.

That wasn’t just disappointing — it was devastating. Across the field, patient after patient relapsed within months of their initial response. The industry was building sprinters. I knew we needed marathoners.

Immumem was born from that frustration. We set out to engineer persistence — to create immune cells that don’t just attack, but endure.

What’s the exact problem you’re solving — and why hasn’t it been solved already?

For many aggressive solid tumors, today’s standard of care is effectively palliative — it slows decline but rarely changes long-term survival.

These tumors are like deserts: starved of nutrients and filled with suppressive signals. Most current treatments — cell therapies, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy — struggle against the resistant stroma and desmoplasia that seal these tumors off. They burn out quickly, leaving patients with false hope.

At Immumem, we’re tackling that head-on. Our proprietary platform, ImmuveilX™, uses memory programming to rewire cellular metabolism. Instead of relying on glucose — which tumor cells actively sequester — our engineered cells access alternative fuel sources that tumor cells cannot deprive them of. That keeps them alive, alert, and ready to fight — for months, not days.

Your technology is clearly different — but what else sets your approach apart?

We didn’t just tweak existing tools. We redesigned the entire immune cell — from how it powers itself to how it remembers the tumor.

What truly differentiates us is that we design our multigene-edited cells for immunological memory, not just survival. Our cells don’t merely persist; they remember the tumor and respond long after the initial attack.

Other companies are trying to hit harder. We’re building cells that not only hit harder but also last longer.

Crucially, we’re not just scientists. My co-founder, Juan Cruz Cuevas, brings deep commercial experience — IPOs, portfolio strategy, reimbursement. From day one, we built this company for scale and sustainability, not just impressive data in mice.

We’re also obsessive about affordability. Most cell therapies today cost $500,000 or more. With our CellTellect™ system, we’re on track to reduce the cost per dose approximately fivefold. That changes the game — not just for patients, but for global access.

You’ve spoken critically about the push for in vivo cell therapy. Why do you believe ex vivo is the right path — at least for now?

It’s a seductive narrative: inject a virus or nanoparticle and let the body build the therapy internally. It’s elegant. It sounds scalable. And for some diseases — perhaps autoimmune disorders or B-cell malignancies — it could work.

But not for solid tumors.

You simply can’t perform extreme, multilayered engineering inside the body. Pancreatic cancer cells don’t just need a weapon — they need armor, navigation, and a new metabolism. That level of complexity requires a controlled ex vivo environment. You wouldn’t try to assemble a Ferrari while driving it down the highway.

Our platform requires multiplex engineering — metabolic rewiring, checkpoint removal, logic gates. Current in vivo systems simply cannot deliver that payload safely.

In vivo approaches also provide no quality control. You don’t know which cells were edited, or how effectively. In our system, every batch is verified before it reaches a patient.

You chose one of the toughest cancers — pancreatic — as your starting point. Why take that risk?

Everyone said we were crazy.

Most startups go after blood cancers first — easier biology, faster wins. But we didn’t want to be the 101st company chasing B-cell lymphoma.

Pancreatic cancer is often described as a medical graveyard. But that’s exactly where our technology shines. It’s a hostile environment where persistence matters most. If we can win there, we can win anywhere.

Strategically, it’s also a blue ocean. While others avoid it, we’re building in an open field — with first-mover advantage.

Let’s talk team. What’s your philosophy for building in such a high-stakes space?

We intentionally created tension between biology and business. Every experiment must answer not only “Does it work?” but also “Will this ever be reimbursed, manufactured, and prescribed?” Science without a path to the clinic isn’t progress — it’s just a lab exercise.

We didn’t build an advisory board for optics. We built what we call a “War Council.” Each advisor was recruited to help us cross a specific valley of death — whether clinical relevance, regulatory approval, or execution at scale.

We didn’t hire generalists. We hired former competitors — scientists from the very companies we aim to outperform. They don’t want to learn the space; they want to fix what’s broken. They’ve seen the failure points of “version 1.0” cell therapies up close. We’re not guessing where things go wrong — we’ve lived it.

We also didn’t wait to think commercially. Most biotech startups bring in business leadership later. We did it on day one. Juan’s commercial insight ensures every experiment aligns with future reimbursement, positioning, and cost structure — creating healthy friction that keeps us honest.

Finally, we built the company with clinical reality in mind. Too many therapies work beautifully in the lab but fall apart in real patients. That’s why we brought in practicing oncologists and regulatory veterans early, including Dr. Andrew Sikora from MD Anderson. We asked a simple question: “What would make you prescribe this? What would make you walk away?” The answers shaped everything we build.

What’s your vision for Immumem five years from now?

This vision works because we’re engineering manufacturing from day one. CellTellect isn’t an afterthought — it’s what makes accessibility possible.

We want a world where hearing “you have cancer” doesn’t mean counting down the days.

Our first mission is to prove our platform works in pancreatic cancer — the Mt. Everest of oncology — between 2026 and 2028.

Then we scale: ovarian, colorectal, triple-negative breast, and recurrent cervical cancers. Because we’re working from an iPSC master bank, we can apply our technology across multiple indications without starting from scratch each time.

The endgame? Make advanced immunotherapy available at local hospitals. No more flying to elite research centers. No more six-figure price tags. Just walk into your clinic and receive a flu-shot-style injection — except it’s a cancer-fighting supercell.

Looking back, what’s the biggest lesson the field has taught you?

I grew tired of “good enough” science — data that looks impressive on slides but doesn’t change how long patients live. I’ve seen too many projects that looked beautiful on paper and failed patients in real life.

We owe people more than incremental hope. We owe them a real chance at life — and at finishing the race.

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