Aug 25, 2023

Kyverna Therapeutics – a clinical-stage cell therapy company with the mission of engineering a new class of therapies for autoimmune diseases – recently announced the closing of an oversubscribed $60 million Series B financing round extension, bringing the total Series B financing round to $145 million. New investors Bain Capital Life Sciences and GordonMD Global Investments LP join existing investors Gilead Sciences, Westlake Village BioPartners, Vida Ventures, Northpond Ventures, RTW Investments, Insight Partners, CAM Capital, LYFE Capital, jVen Capital, and others. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy involves modifying a patient’s immune T cells to recognize and remove B cells in the patient’s body. And Kyverna’s anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapies, KYV-101 and KYV-201, specifically target CD19, a protein expressed on the surface of B cells involved in various types of autoimmune diseases, including lupus nephritis. These novel therapies have the potential to offer new hope to patients who have exhausted current treatment options. And Kyverna continues to explore additional indications for its anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapies and develop a solid pipeline of promising immunotherapies to address unmet medical needs. KEY QUOTES: “We are pleased by the increasing investor confidence in the promise of Kyverna’s anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy for autoimmune diseases. This Series B extension will fund Kyverna’s clinical studies in the U.S. and Europe, enabling us to move more quickly toward bringing potentially transformative and life-saving therapies to patients. We continue to treat autoimmune patients in multiple indications and multiple geographies, and we look forward to sharing clinical data in the second half of 2023.” — Ryan Jones, chief financial officer of Kyverna “I have supported anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy for cancer since the early clinical trials. It is exciting to see Kyverna break into new frontiers by advancing cell therapies for autoimmune diseases. I am looking forward to future developments from Kyverna.” — Craig Gordon, M.D., founder, chief executive officer, and chief investment officer of Gordon MD Global Investments LP Trending on Pulse 2.0