Next-Gen Gene Therapy Firm Kate Therapeutics Starts Out With Big Pharma Partner

Announces $51m Series A, License Deal With Astellas

 
• By Joseph Haas and Lisa Takagi
  
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Kate is focused on delivering gene therapies for two rare, neuromuscular diseases by deploying AAV technology that it says will target muscle tissue and enable regulated therapeutic payloads.

Adenovirus
Kate Therapeutics focuses on novel AAV vectors with smaller payloads • Source: Shutterstock

Kate Therapeutics, which focuses on rare skeletal and cardiac muscle diseases and gene therapies employing novel capsid delivery to enable lower therapeutic doses, exited stealth on 8 June by simultaneously unveiling a $51m series A financing and also an out-licensing deal with Astellas Pharma, Inc. for a candidate that includes one of its muscle-targeted adeno-associated virus (AAV) delivery vectors.

Kate – named for a patient with one of the first two diseases it is targeting – calls itself a...

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