Portfolio News

Kyverna Therapeutics Announces Leadership Update

Warner Biddle Appointed as Chief Executive Officer and to Board of Directors, Bringing Over 30 Years of Commercial, Product Planning and Franchise Leadership Experience, Including Successful Launches for CAR T Pioneer in Hematology

Latigo Biotherapeutics Appoints Tim Lugo as Chief Financial Officer and Adds Beth Seidenberg and Jim Tananbaum to Board of Directors

Latigo Biotherapeutics Inc. (“Latigo”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing best-in-class non-opioid pain medicines that target pain at its source, today announced the appointment of Tim Lugo as chief financial officer (CFO). In addition, Latigo has appointed Beth Seidenberg, M.D., and Jim Tananbaum, M.D., to its board of directors. These appointments bring deep expertise and leadership as Latigo scales to rapidly advance its lead clinical programs.

ArsenalBio Announces $325 Million Financing to Advance Programmable Cell Therapy Programs Through Clinical Development

Arsenal Biosciences, Inc. (ArsenalBio), a clinical stage programmable cell therapy company focused on engineering advanced CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors, today announced the close of an oversubscribed $325 million Series C financing round. The funding round included new investors ARCH Venture Partners, Milky Way Investments Group, Regeneron Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Luma Group, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Rock Springs Capital, among others, with ongoing support from existing investors the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Westlake Village BioPartners, Kleiner Perkins, Byers Capital, and Hitachi Ventures.

Star Therapeutics Presents Clinical Data for VGA039, a Subcutaneous Therapy for the Treatment of Von Willebrand Disease (VWD)

Star Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotechnology company discovering and developing best-in-class antibodies, today announced the presentation of clinical data from VIVID 1 (VGA039 Investigation in Von Willebrand Disease), a Phase 1 clinical study of VGA039 in healthy volunteers. VGA039 is designed to be a universal hemostatic therapy for numerous bleeding disorders and potentially the first subcutaneous therapy for von Willebrand disease (VWD). The VGA039 clinical data was presented today in an oral presentation at the 32nd Congress of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH), taking place on June 22-26 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Kyverna Therapeutics to Present Data on 50 Patient Experience at Symposium at EULAR 2024

Kyverna Therapeutics, Inc. (Kyverna), a patient-centered, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing cell therapies for patients suffering from autoimmune diseases, announced today that it will host a sponsored symposium to present the largest and most diverse set of data to date from a cohort of 50 patients treated with the CAR in KYV-101, an autologous, fully human anti-CD19 CAR T-cell immunotherapy. The data support the differentiated safety profile of the CAR in various indications, including a 30-patient data set that spans >28 day follow-up in various autoimmune disease patients with early efficacy data. A 12-month follow-up of the first patient treated with KYV-101 for myasthenia gravis will also be presented.

Kate Therapeutics Unveils Platform and Pipeline Progress at American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy 2024 Annual Meeting

Kate Therapeutics Inc. (“KateTx”), a next-generation gene therapy company, will present detailed preclinical efficacy and safety results on its pipeline and platform at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) 2024 Annual Meeting being held May 7-11, 2024, in Baltimore, MD and virtually. The results support the best-in-class potential of KateTx’s newest generation of skeletal muscle- and heart-targeted, liver de-targeted engineered MyoAAV capsids and gene regulation technology to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), and other devastating genetic skeletal muscle and heart diseases.

Arsenal Biosciences Announces First Patient Dosed in Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of AB-2100 in Development as a Treatment for Clear-cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Arsenal Biosciences, Inc. (ArsenalBio), a clinical stage programmable cell therapy company focused on engineering advanced CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors, today announced that the first patient has been dosed with AB-2100 in a multi-center, open-label Phase 1/2 clinical trial for patients with clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). AB-2100 utilizes ArsenalBio’s CITE (CRISPR Integration of Transgenes by Electroporation) technology to engineer T cells to selectively target the tumor and overcome the suppressive tumor microenvironment. These engineering features will potentially enable the patient’s immune system to destroy ccRCC cells without harming normal tissues.