Mysthera: restoring immune balance via PIM kinases

Launched in August with $3.5 million from Forty51, Basel-based Mysthera aims to treat autoimmune diseases such as lupus nephritis by modulating, rather than shutting off, the immune system with small molecules targeting PIM kinases.

Mysthera Therapeutics AG grew out of CEO Darren Cunningham’s previous company, Inflection Biosciences Ltd., which was developing PIM inhibitors, licensed from Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, to treat cancer. A growing literature on the target class in autoimmune and inflammatory settings caught the company’s attention, but rather than develop in-house expertise in those diseases, the company decided to partner out the program...