Jan. 26 Quick Takes: Kyverna’s autoimmune cell therapies get lift from $85M series B
Plus clinical hold for Cortexyme’s lead Alzheimer’s therapy; PureTech’s Akili goes public via SPAC; Adlai, Biotime deal; and more
Kyverna Therapeutics Inc.’s Northpond Ventures-led $85 million series B round will fund a Phase II study of the company’s autologous anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy, which is optimized for B cell-driven autoimmune diseases such as lupus nephritis, systemic sclerosis, and inflammatory myopathies. The funds will also support development of an allogeneic version of the therapy, KYV-201, and the company's preclinical synthetic Treg platform.
Kyverna gained access to the autoimmunity-optimized CD19 CAR construct and allogeneic gene editing technology behind its two lead programs via a pair of deals announced this month. The CAR construct from NIH aims to lower the risk of neurotoxicity, while the Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) gene editing partnership takes the technology off the shelf...