San Diego-based Kenai Therapeutics Inc. raised $82 million in a series A round to move its disease-modifying cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease into the clinic. The company, which leverages induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, will advance its next-generation allogeneic neuron replacement cell therapies for neurological diseases, specifically completing a clinical proof-of-concept trial for its lead candidate, RNDP-001. The series A was co-led by Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., Cure Ventures and The Column Group, with participation from Euclidean Capital and Saisei Ventures. Proceeds will enable Kenai to submit an IND for RNDP-001 and bring it through the completion of phase I trials, which are expected to begin sometime in 2024.
San Diego-based Kenai Therapeutics Inc. raised $82 million in a series A round to move its disease-modifying cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease into the clinic. The company, which leverages induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, will advance its next-generation allogeneic neuron replacement cell therapies for neurological diseases, specifically completing a clinical proof-of-concept trial for its lead candidate, RNDP-001.
Curve Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £40.5 million (US$51.2 million) in a series A round to take two lead programs toward the clinic over the next three years. Since its formation in 2019, Curve has applied its Microcycle intracellular screening platform to discover a pipeline of small molecules against oncology targets that have evaded conventional approaches.
Baseimmune Ltd. has raised $11.3 million through a series A to accelerate the development of its deep learning AI technology for predicting future pathogen mutations to generate a series of longer-lasting, multistrain vaccines.
Baseimmune Ltd. has closed $11.3 million (£9 million) in series A funding. The company uses proprietary, deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) to predict future pathogen mutations to generate novel vaccines.
Curve Therapeutics Ltd. has closed a £40.5 million (US$51.4 million) series A financing, with the funds to be used to progress its lead assets into the clinic and to expand its drug discovery platform beyond challenging and complex intracellular protein targets.
Raising $94 million in a series A round, South San Francisco-based Firefly Bio Inc. has emerged from stealth to advance its Firelink linker platform technology to develop degrader-antibody conjugates (DACs) to treat cancer. A combination of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and targeted protein degradation therapies, DACs are a new class of medicines that have recently gained attention for their ability to replace toxic ADC payloads and to eliminate cancer-driven proteins.
When founders of Latigo Biotherapeutics Inc. first set out a few years ago to establish a biopharma firm focused in the area of pain, the plan had been to get a head start by in-licensing promising assets in the space. But that proved easier said than done. “With the exception of very early chemical matter” from the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, “we really couldn’t find anything else of quality to bring in, which I think is a testament to how little pain research and investment was ongoing in pharma and academia,” said Sean Harper, co-founding managing director at Westlake Village Biopartners, which founded Latigo in 2020 and led the firm’s $135 million series A round.
Taipei-based precision oncology firm Anbogen Therapeutics Inc. drew $12.5 million in a series A funding round to propel two major clinical assets in its cancer pipeline.
RSS
