Quell Therapeutics

Engineered Treg cell therapies for immune dysfunction.

Regulatory T cell (Tregs) and cytotoxic T cell

Quell Therapeutics is a privately held biotechnology company which is developing next generation engineered T regulatory (Treg) cell therapies for a range of immune dysfunction diseases.

Quell Therapeutics was founded by Syncona in partnership with six leading experts in the Treg field, cell engineering, solid organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases, including 
Hans Stauss, Professor of Tumour Immunology and Director of UCL's Institute of Immunity and Transplantation and Emma Morris, Professor of Clinical Cell & Gene Therapy and Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics at University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre.

The Quell journey so far:

  • 2019: Quell Therapeutics is founded by Syncona Ltd 
  • 2021: Quell announces it has raised $156 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing
  • 2025: AstraZeneca selects a lead Quell Treg cell therapy candidate to progress from the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) program.
  • 2026: Quell starts a phase 1/2 clinical trial of its CAR-Treg therapy, QEL-005, in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Sclerosis.

 

Team

Professor Emma Morris

Co-founder

Director of the UCL Division of Infection & Immunity. Professor Morris' clinical interest is in the field of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, cell and gene therapy.

Professor Hans Stauss

Co-founder

Director of the UCL Institute of Immunity & Transplantation. Professor Stauss has an international reputation as a researcher in cancer immunotherapy and has focused on T-cell research for many years.

Dr. Barny Cox

Senior Business Manager

Dr Cox is responsible for assisting in the commercial exploitation of IP arising from UCL’s departments of Medicine, Structural and Molecular Biology, Infection and Immunity, Chemical Biology, Biochemical Engineering, Medical Physics and BioEngineering, Epidemeology and Health and Psychology and Language Sciences.

Prior to joining UCL Ventures, Barny was a technology transfer manager at Queen Mary Innovation, where in addition to acting as a director on the board and company secretariat to a Queen Mary, University of London spinout, he gained a wealth of experience in the commercialisation of a broad portfolio of healthcare and other life science-related technologies, assisting in the patent prosecution of new commercially-viable innovations, the acquisition of translational funds and successful marketing, negotiation and execution of a number of out-licensing deals.

Barny has previously held positions with the British Medical Association and two internationally-acclaimed patent and trademark firms, where he gained a thorough grounding in intellectual property prosecution.

He completed an MRC Career Development Fellowship at the National Institute for Medical Research in the field of developmental neurobiology, studying the morphogenic Sonic Hedgehog signalling cascade in mammalian neural tube cell-fate specification and holds a doctorate awarded by UCL.