Kineticos Life Sciences, a Raleigh investment firm, has formed a startup to develop a new generation of antibiotics that can overcome drug-resistant infections.
KinvardBio has been formed through a licensing agreement with Harvard University. Kineticos is licensing research from the lab of Andy Myers, a professor in Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology whose work has shown promise in preclinical studies on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The new company lists Raleigh as its headquarters on its LinkedIn page. Lloyd Payne, a 25-year life sciences veteran who joined Kineticos in January, is serving as Kinvard’s CEO.
Funding and operational support for the startup is through the Kineticos AMR Accelerator Fund I, also known as KAMRA I. Kineticos did not disclose the amount.
“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 treating patients with challenging drug-resistant infections,” Payne said in a Kineticos news release.
AMR continues to pose a significant threat to public health. According to research cited by the World Health Organization, drug resistance either caused or was a contributing factor in more than 6 million global deaths in 2019.
Decades of overuse have led antibiotics to become less effective. And many of the biggest biopharmaceutical companies no longer invest in developing new antibiotics. Since antibiotics, antivirals and related drugs frequently cure a condition and are only used short-term, financial returns don’t match those of medications for chronic conditions and other diseases, a 2015 paper published in the journal Pharmacy & Therapeutics concluded.
Kinvard said it focuses on therapies for conditions that represent a significant public health burden. These include complicated urinary tract infections, bacterial pneumonia, and nontuberculosis mycobacteria lung disease.
At Harvard, Myers leads studies of a class of lincosamide antibiotics known as oxepanoprolinamides (OPPs). These have been shown to be effective against bacterial pathogens in preclinical studies, which led the Myers lab to secure $1.2 million in funding from the Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Pharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X). Myers is using the funds to help advance studies to later stages.
“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 the news release.