Venture capital firm Kineticos Life Sciences has launched a new biotech to take forward a class of antibiotics forged in the labs of Harvard University.
Kineticos has already set up an accelerator fund, dubbed KAMRA I, to finance life sciences companies working to combat the growing global threat of antimicrobial resistance. Some of this funding has gone toward setting up Kinvard Bio, which is developing antibiotics called oxepanoprolinamides that are being touted as offering highly effective and differentiated binding to the bacterial ribosome.
Oxepanoprolinamides are a class of lincosamide antibiotics the origins of which lie in the lab of Professor Andy Myers, Ph.D., at Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. These drugs have already proven their effectiveness against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens in preclinical studies, according to Kinvard Bio’s Feb. 24 release.
This research team previously received $1.2 million from the Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator to evaluate several potential therapies with the aim of “advancing them to the later stages of the drug discovery pipeline,” according to the release.
Kinvard Bio has now secured the license to this oxepanoprolinamide tech and is working toward taking potential therapies into the clinic. The biotech’s initial focus is on infections with high unmet need such as complicated urinary tract infections, community-acquired bacterial pneumonia, hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia and nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease.
“The powerful synthetic methods we've developed at the Myers Lab have enabled us to create a series of compounds that hold great promise for treating superbugs resistant to standard treatments,” Myers said in this morning’s release. “Licensing these compounds and the synthetic platform for further development should accelerate the production of essential antibiotics to address the pressing global health issues caused by drug-resistant infections.”
Kinvard Bio is headed up by Lloyd Payne, Ph.D., who was previously CEO of antibiotic company ArrePath and currently is a venture partner for the KAMRA I fund.
Payne said he was “thrilled to join Kinvard Bio and work with the team to progress a highly differentiated class of antibacterials with broad therapeutic potential towards the clinic.”
“Partnering with KAMRA I represents an excellent opportunity to further develop the Myers Lab innovation and meet the critical need for new IV and oral antibiotics for the treatment of patients with challenging drug-resistant infections,” the CEO added.
Fierce Biotech has asked Kinvard Bio what level of financing it has received from the fund.
The low return on investment means many of the biggest biopharmas have given up working on new antifungals or antibiotics in recent years—although GSK in particular has continued to sign deals and post encouraging clinical results against infections like gonorrhea.