CHILLY MAZARIN, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Metabrain Research, an innovative biotechnology company focused on the early development of drugs for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and inflammatory diseases announced today the signature of an agreement with Medicxi, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm, for the inception of Kymo Therapeutics Ltd, incorporated in Cambridge (UK).
Kymo Therapeutics’s ambition is to move forward Metabrain Research’s proprietary program on kynurenine metabolism (KMO) inhibitors towards clinical proof of concept, before seeking partners to complete development and ensure commercialization.
Medicxi has committed up to € 10 million to Kymo Therapeutics.
“I am truly pleased about this agreement with Medicxi, a renowned investment firm dedicated to funding science-driven companies. It clearly validates our discovery model for early stage innovation, turning concepts into product development companies” said Dr. Valerie Autier, CEO of Metabrain and Board member of Kymo Therapeutics.
“We are very excited about the potential of our programs as we believe they open new perspectives in establishing the links between inflammatory mechanisms and metabolic disorders. It carries the promise of impacting on the pathophysiological process thus bringing new therapies for type 2 diabetes and adjacent diseases” added Dr. Autier.
Michele Ollier, founding Partner at Medicxi said “The kynurenine pathway, mostly known for the role of IDO/TDO in immuno-oncology, is emerging as an important pathway in immune inflammatory diseases. Metabrain Research’s work has identified and validated KMO as a potential major target in this pathway and the opportunity to develop KMO inhibitors as new therapeutic entities for metabolic diseases and beyond. Kymo was created as a single asset company, a model that we particularly like to pursue at Medicxi”.
About kynurenine metabolism inhibitors
The kynurenine pathway leads to the production of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) from the degradation of tryptophan, an essential amino acid. The kynurenine pathway is well balanced under physiological conditions but up-regulated during inflammation, leading to several diseases including diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, depression and cancer. Metabrain described recently the key role of this pathway in pancreatic dysfunction (Liu et al. 2015). Inhibiting kynurenine metabolism is a promising approach to treat immune-inflammatory-related diseases.
About Metabrain Research
Metabrain Research is an innovative biotechnology company focused on the early development of drugs for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and inflammatory diseases. Benefiting from its R&D platform, it leverages its expertise on kynurenine metabolism to bringing therapeutic customized solutions to elderly and frail patients and allowing their treatment efficacy tracking. Metabrain Research is currently strengthening its partnership model, in a rapid and flexible way, so facing challenges of early stage drug development (www.metabrainresearch.com).
About Medicxi
Medicxi is a life sciences focused venture capital firm recently spun out from Index Ventures. One of the Europe’s largest dedicated life sciences VC firms, Medicxi has offices in London, Jersey and Geneva. Past and existing portfolio companies include for example GenMab (Copenhagen: GEN.CO), PanGenetics (acquired by Abbott), Minerva Neurosciences (Nasdaq: NERV), Egalet (Nasdaq: EGLT), Molecular Partners (Swiss: MOLN.SW), Versartis (Nasdaq: VSAR), Levicept, XO1 (acquired by Janssen Pharmaceuticals), OncoEthix (acquired by Merck), E3Bio Ltd, Gadeta BV…and several others.
