Christoph Westphal back on the horse with new immunotherapy startup

Christoph Westphal is at it again. Not quite a year after stepping down from his CEO role at Flex Pharma, the serial biotech entrepreneur launched another Boston area-based company: T-Scan Therapeutics. 

Details are sketchy, with an April 23 corporate filing naming Westphal as its CEO and saying the company is "developing immunotherapy treatments for cancer," the Boston Business Journal reported. Westphal declined to comment on T-Scan's operations or approach to immunotherapy to the BBJ. 

Westphal has had a hand in founding a number of biotechs, including Momenta, Alnylam, Acceleron and Sirtris in the early 2000s. He is perhaps best known for launching Sirtris, which GlaxoSmithKline acquired in 2008 for a hefty $720 million. The British pharma then shuttered the unit in 2013 after progress stalled in the clinic. GSK then absorbed the R&D work into a larger research unit in Pennsylvania. 

In 2010, Westphal formed the VC firm Longwood Fund with Rich Aldrich and Michelle Dipp. Longwood went on to back Verastem, which Westphal took public in 2012, and Flex Pharma, which he launched in 2014. He steered Flex to an $86 million IPO in 2015. 

When he stepped down from Flex last June, he stayed on as chair of the board but returned to his VC role at Longwood full-time.

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