Kymera Inks US$ 150M Deal with Sanofi for Potential Rheumatoid Arthritis and Eczema Treatments

By Ruchi Jhonsa, Ph.D.

Just months after raising US$ 102 million in Series C funding, Cambridge, MA-based Kymera Therapeutics has entered a big pharma deal.

Targeted protein degradation is an emerging therapeutic area offering immense promise. Since it utilizes the cell’s protein disposal system, it can potentially be used to target previously undruggable proteins.

On July 9th, Kymera Therapeutics announced the signing of a multi-program strategic collaboration with French biopharma giant, Sanofi to advance two protein degrader therapies targeting IRAK4 and an undisclosed target in patients with immune-inflammatory diseases. While Kymera’s IRAK-4 program will benefit from Sanofi’s expertise and resources in immune-inflammatory diseases, the latter will be able to expand its existing rich portfolio of inflammatory drugs that includes Kevzara and Dupixent.

“Targeted protein degradation is an exciting modality. Kymera has developed an incredible drug discovery engine producing protein degraders with compelling and differentiated pharmacology against targets that, to date, have not been optimally addressed with other therapeutic modalities,” said John Reed, Global Head of Research & Development at Sanofi. “We are excited to partner with the Kymera team to advance a new generation of first-in-class therapies with the potential to eliminate underlying drivers of disease.”

IRAK4 Kinase

IRAK4 is a key protein involved in inflammation by the activation of toll-like receptors (TLRs) and IL-1 receptors (IL-1Rs). Under physiological conditions, IRAK4 activation of TLR and IL-1R signaling is required for normal immune response. However, abnormal activation of the same leads to multiple-immune inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa.

Several kinase inhibitors are available for targeting IRAK4. However, one of the challenges with targeting the protein is that both its kinase and scaffolding function needs to be blocked, and its where conventional kinase inhibitors fail. Kymera is solving this problem by developing a suite of small-molecule targeted protein degraders that leverage the cells’ natural killer proteins, E3 ligases for degrading erroneous protein. These inhibitors are much more effective against proteins like IRAK-4 as they simultaneously kill both its functions. So far, Kymera has successfully shown the effectiveness of these inhibitors in preclinical studies where complete suppression of IRAK4 was observed along with the reversal of inflammation in human cells and disease models.

“This is an important collaboration for both companies and for the field of targeted protein degradation,” said Nello Mainolfi, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Kymera. “Kymera is becoming a fully integrated biotechnology company advancing a pipeline of novel therapies with the potential to transform treatment paradigms. We are excited to partner with Sanofi, an organization with world-class drug development and commercialization capabilities, to ensure maximal patient impact from two of our programs across multiple disease indications while enabling Kymera to invest in key strategic areas to realize the broad potential of protein degrader therapies.”

Kymera-Sanofi Deal

As per the deal, Sanofi will pay $150 million upfront for global rights of the IRAK4 program in inflammation and immunology indication as well as the second earlier state program yet to be disclosed. However, the global rights of the IRAK4 program in cancer will remain with Kymera. Additionally, the company is also bound to receive $2 billion in development, regulatory, sales milestones along with royalties on commercial products coming out of the partnership.

As far as drug development goes, Kymera will be responsible for taking the IRAK4 program into the Phase 1 trials, and Sanofi will be responsible for clinical development and commercialization activities thereafter. For the second program, which is yet to disclosed, Sanofi will be the sole in charge of the program. However, Kymera will have the option to participate in the development of both programs in the U.S. during clinical development.

Editor: Rajaneesh K. Gopinath, Ph.D.

Related Article: Vividion Inks $135 Million Deal with Roche for Targeted Protein Degraders

References

1. https://www.kymeratx.com/press_releases/kymera-therapeutics-and-sanofi-enter-into-strategic-partnership-to-advance-novel-protein-degrader-therapies-to-patients/

Author

Ruchi Jhonsa