Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center has forged several new partnerships aimed at boosting its commercial prospects in the immune-oncology arena. The biggest of these new ventures is its joint launch of Immatics US last August with Tubingen, Germany–based Immatics Biotechnologies. This Houston-based spin-off begins operations with a hefty $60 million, two-thirds from the German parent company and the remainder from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. Also in August, the MD Anderson Cancer Center agreed to collaborate with Merck of Kenilworth, New Jersey, to evaluate anti-PD-1 therapy, Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in combination with other medicines to treat hepatocellular and adenocarcinomas. The first clinical studies will start enrolling this year. In September, the center also entered an R&D alliance with Paris-based Cellectis to evaluate the biotech's allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor platform. The alliance will work on leukemia and myeloma, and the rare, incurable disease, blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasma. In a separate arrangement made public in October, MD Anderson and Theraclone Sciences of Seattle formed OncoResponse, a firm that will rely on Theraclone's I-STAR immune repertoire screening technology to identify antibodies with exceptional reactivity from immune-oncology treated patients. This new company raised $9.5 million in series A financing, led by ARCH Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and MD Anderson, with Rice University and Alexandria Real Estate Equities also participating.