Intellia and Kyverna to Leverage CAR-T Therapy Against Autoimmune Diseases

Kyverna CEO Dominic Borie, MD, Ph.D./Courtesy Kyverna Therapeutics

Intellia Therapeutics and Kyverna Therapeutics announced an exclusive agreement to develop and later commercialize an allogeneic CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to treat a wide range of B cell-mediated autoimmune illnesses. 

The licensing and collaboration deal gives Kyverna access to Intellia's proprietary ex vivo CRISPR/Cas9-based allogeneic platform to develop KYV-201, a next-generation CD19 CAR T-cell investigational candidate.

Kyverna has the exclusive global license to a novel clinical-stage anti-CD19 CAR T construct for use in both allogeneic and autologous CAR T-cell treatments, combining a fully human anti-CD19 CAR with costimulatory domains that can improve clinical tolerability and reduce cytokine release. Through its deal with Intellia, Kyverna will further develop this construct in an allogeneic setting to target certain autoimmune disorders

In exchange, Intellia will gain an equity interest in Kyverna, in addition to making a separate financial investment. Intellia also stands to gain future payments when development and commercial milestones are achieved. Should Intellia decide to co-develop and co-commercialize the end product KYV-201 in the United States, it needs to pay an opt-in fee and share in 50% of the total development expenses and sales revenue in the country. 

Kyverna will fund and lead preclinical and clinical studies into KYV-201 and retain all rights outside of the U.S., with Intellia also receiving low-to-mid-single-digit royalties for the given scope. The company licensed KYV-201 from the National Institutes of Health.

"We have been planning from the start for autologous and allogeneic applications of the differentiated CD19 CAR we licensed from the NIH, and the collaboration with Intellia will enable us to move forward with our plans for KYV-201, our allogeneic program," Kyverna President and CEO Dominic Borie, MD, Ph.D. told Biospace. 

"Both programs will be resourced appropriately and we are preparing to enter the clinic in the first half of 2022 with our autologous fully human CD19 CAR, KYV-101. We've worked hard to get to this point, and are excited about what the future holds as we work to bring transformative therapies to autoimmune patients," Borie added.  

Intellia's ex vivo programs use CRISPR to create therapies by using engineered human cells to treat autoimmune disorders and cancers. The company's in vivo programs use intravenously administered CRISPR as therapy, during which the highly precise editing of disease-causing genes happens in specific target tissue locations. The partnership with Kyverna is part of Intellia's goal to create more effective, accessible, and safer therapies for many types of diseases.

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