Participated · Series B · Jan 2022

Kyverna Therapeutics is a clinical-stage cell therapy company focused on engineering a new class of therapies for autoimmune diseases. Its lead programs, KYV-101 and KYV-201, are anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapies that target CD19 on B cells. The company is advancing clinical studies in the U.S. and Europe and intends to use recent financing to accelerate those trials. Kyverna specifically highlights applications in autoimmune conditions including lupus nephritis. The company has attracted investment from biopharma and life-science investors backing its clinical-stage programs. Kyverna Therapeutics engineers a new class of cell therapies for serious autoimmune and inflammatory diseases using advanced T-cell engineering and synthetic biology. Its platform includes next-generation CAR T therapies in autologous and allogeneic settings and synReg T cells, a synthetic version of regulatory T cells. The company holds exclusive worldwide licenses from the NIH to use a novel anti-CD19 construct across autologous and allogeneic CAR T therapies. Kyverna intends to advance KYV-101, an autologous anti-CD19 CAR T candidate, into clinical development for B cell-driven autoimmune diseases in the first half of 2022. It is also developing KYV-201 in collaboration with Intellia, combining its CD19 CAR construct with Intellia’s ex vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based allogeneic platform. Kyverna has a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Gilead to develop engineered T-cell therapies based on its synReg platform and Kite’s synNotch technology and is led by CEO Dominic Borie in Emeryville, California. Kyverna Therapeutics is a Berkeley, Calif.-based cell therapy company engineering a new class of therapies for serious autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It raised $25 million in a Series A equity financing from Vida Ventures and Westlake Village BioPartners. The company’s platform combines advanced T cell engineering and synthetic biology technologies, including a synthetic Treg platform and synNotch™ technology from Kite (a Gilead company), to target autoreactive immune cells at the root cause of disease. Kyverna intends to use the proceeds to advance its therapeutic strategy and to conduct research activities and initial clinical studies through proof-of-concept for programs covered by its collaboration. Kyverna entered a strategic collaboration and license agreement with Gilead under which Gilead paid an upfront $17.5 million and Kyverna may earn up to $570 million in development and commercialization milestones; Gilead has an option to assume further clinical development and commercialization upon exercise. Leadership and board changes accompanied the financing: Fred Cohen of Vida Ventures will serve as chairman; Dominic Borie, M.D., Ph.D., was appointed CEO and will serve on the board; Jeffrey Greve, Ph.D., remains CSO; and investor representatives from Westlake Village BioPartners and Vida Ventures were named to the board. Kyverna will also continue to advance proprietary programs beyond the Gilead collaboration.