Boston’s Kelonia Therapeutics Bags $50M to Accelerate Genetic Medicines

Kelonia Therapeutics, a biotech revolutionizing in-vivo gene delivery, launched with a $50 million Series A financing with backing of Alta Partners, Horizons Ventures, and Venrock to initiate a new era of targeted genetic therapies. 

Based on discoveries made in Michael Birnbaum’s lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and leveraging pioneering research from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Kelonia’s in-vivo gene delivery platform allows potent lentiviral vector particles armed with a flexible targeting system to deliver payloads exactly where they are needed to treat diseases. Combining CAR-T cells with in-vivo targeting, the result is off-shelf genetic therapeutics that can be administered directly.

The support from strong investors also pushed Kelonia into strategic collaborations with players like ElevateBio, which is also developing robust and integrated manufacturing pipelines.

Related Article: UK’s Autolus Receives RMAT Designation by FDA for CAR T Cell Therapy

Rapidly Growing Global Cell Therapy Market

As one of the most innovative therapies available in the market which uses the patients’ immune cells to fight cancer, the CAR-T market was projected to reach $20,566 million by 2029, rising at 31.6% CAGR.

Increase in cooperation and trials by drug makers to develop CAR-T cell therapies worldwide coupled with the rise in global public health push for cancer awareness is driving CAR-T cell therapy and is expected to further boost market growth.

“Kelonia is combining the two crucial elements required to develop truly novel medicines: breakthrough biology and an exceptional team,” said Bryan Roberts, Partner at Venrock. “Michael Birnbaum’s industrially robust platform affords a targeting specificity log orders better than anything else out there and the team has a stellar track record for translating groundbreaking scientific gene therapy discoveries into viable products that are transformative for patients.”

As the company begins accessing its core technology and expanding its portfolio, patients can anticipate more market-disturbing therapeutic innovations to be made available soon.

Author

Fujie Tham