Impact Report
Matthew Cooper remembers vividly the day when his boss at Washington University Medical School came back from visiting a young patient who was dying of leukemia.
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With $115 million in hand, Cortex-based biotech startup eyes the finish line
October 06, 2025
by St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Professor John DiPersio, distraught because he couldn’t help the child, said, “Matt, we have to go to the lab and come up with a cure.”
The two did just that. The lab work would eventually lead Cooper to found a company, Wugen, that’s developing a promising cell therapy for treating T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoma, forms of cancer that have extraordinarily high mortality rates.
Wugen recently raised $115 million in venture capital to fund clinical studies that should, if all goes well, push its therapy across the finish line. The company expects to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval in 2027.
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