Biotech
Thursday, September 7th, 2023 7:52 am EDT
Dive Brief:
- Kriya Therapeutics, a gene therapy startup that’s raised more than $600 million, has acquired privately held Tramontane Therapeutics to gain access to an experimental treatment for a prevalent liver condition.
- Tramontane, which focuses on metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases, was spun out from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Its lead program targets nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, and has shown consistent results in preclinical testing, Kriya CEO Shankar Ramaswamy said in a statement announcing the deal Wednesday.
- The company didn’t release a purchase price, but Kriya has plenty of cash. In July, the company announced a Series C funding round of $150 million from investors led by Patient Square Capital.
Dive Insight:
Ramaswamy, the brother of presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, has ambitious plans to develop gene therapies for major diseases of the eye, brain and metabolism.
Kriya’s pipeline already includes a gene therapy candidate designed to be a one-time treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes. Now, it’s adding a possible treatment for NASH, which is caused by excessive fat buildup in the liver that can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure. While estimates vary widely, the condition is thought to affect millions of people in the U.S.
Tramontane’s therapy focuses on a protein called FGF21 that has beneficial metabolic effects. It’s a target that’s already drawn interest from a variety of researchers and drugmakers. Last year, Akero Therapeutics’ shares soared after the company reported success in a study of its drug that mimics the effects of FGF21 in NASH patients.
Kriya and Tramontane are trying to develop a one-time infusion that would allow continuous expression of FGF21 in the body. They claim that such a gene therapy could offer better efficacy and safety than other products in development, while sparing patients a lifetime of complex medication regimens. So far, the idea has only been tested in animals; Kriya aims to bring the therapy into the clinic in 2025.
Although a number of drugmakers are trying to develop treatments for NASH, there are no currently approved medications for the disease. Intercept Pharmaceuticals, once seen as the leading contender in the market, had its medicine rejected for a second time by the Food and Drug Administration in June.
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