Date: 2022-04-07
Type of information: Financing round
Company: Kynos Therapeutics (UK)
Investors: Epidarex Capital (US) Ip Group (UK) Scottish Enterprise (UK)
Amount: £6.5 million
Funding type:
Planned used: Kynos is a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh (UoE), based on over a decade of research into KMO biology and its inhibitors. Its technology and KMOis were co-developed during a multi-year collaborative programme between the UoE founders and GSK. The collaboration concluded in 2019 and data packages and all rights and intellectual property were transferred to the UoE. GSK is eligible for a royalty should a medicine be registered. This financing will be used to build out Kynos core team and to fund preclinical indication expansion studies as well as to initiate development of oral formulations of KMO inhibitors. These activities will run in parallel to the Innovate UK-funded Phase 1 clinical trial in humans. Kynurenine 3-monooxygenase (KMO), a pivotal enzyme in the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism, plays a major role in the control of inflammation and metabolism, contributing to the regulation of the immune system. It is a mitochondrial enzyme that converts kynurenine into biologically active 3HK that damages cells. Blocking KMO reduces 3HK, protecting against tissue damage. Kynos's pipeline is focused on three key areas: in critical illness post-surgery; in conditions driven by inflammation; and in cancers where inflammation is preventing the immune system from fighting back. Kynos's core founding team are leading experts in KMO biology and medicinal chemistry with clinical, translational and drug discovery experience: CEO Damian J Mole (Professor of Surgery and MRC Senior Clinical Fellow, the University of Edinburgh Centre for Inflammation Research; and CSO Scott Webster (Professor of Medicines Discovery, Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh). The industry engagement and launch of the spin-out company have been supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh's commercialisation service.
Others:
Therapeutic area: Inflammatory diseases - Oncology - Metabolic diseases
