CBI-Invested Kineta to Complete Merger with Umanity Within the Year... Technology Transfer to Janssen Also Planned

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Kineta announced on the 14th that it submitted the merger document S-4 with Yumanity to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the end of August and plans to complete the merger between Kineta and Yumanity within this year. It also firmly confirmed that it will license Yumanity's neurodegenerative disease treatment to Janssen.

After CBI invested last year, the investment funds were used to develop three immuno-oncology drug pipelines, and related documents for the Phase 1 clinical trial of the VISTA-targeting anticancer drug are expected to be submitted within a week. VISTA aims to demonstrate its market value as a new immune checkpoint inhibitor through combination therapy with 'Keytruda,' the representative drug in the third-generation immuno-oncology market.

Recognizing VISTA's preclinical data in the market, Merck is currently internally agreeing to jointly conduct combination clinical trials with Kineta, and if the final agreement is reached around October, the Phase 1 combination clinical trial of VISTA and Keytruda is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year. This time, it will start with five solid tumors as indications, but recently, internal clinical data for hematologic cancers have also shown positive results, and Phase 1 clinical trials for hematologic cancer indications are being prepared for next year.

Additionally, for the analgesic drug being developed in partnership with Genentech, Genentech is currently reviewing the Phase 1 clinical data internally, and additional milestones and licensing agreements with Genentech are expected within a few months.

Since agreeing to pursue a merger with Yumanity in June this year, Kineta has been preparing more swiftly for Yumanity's pipelines as well. Yumanity licensed anticancer and fibrosis treatments to Genentech and Fair Therapeutics at the discovery stage (worth $100 million and $1 billion respectively), and for the USP14 anticancer drug, Genentech is expected to pay a $2 million milestone by the end of this year or next year depending on further development.

Research personnel from Kineta and Yumanity are currently focusing on two pipelines licensed to Merck. These are treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), with a discovery-stage licensing contract worth $515 million (approximately 700 billion KRW), and recent R&D data have been favorable, with data submission to Merck planned around November. In collaboration with Merck, if the next phase clinical trial proceeds, a milestone of $5 million per pipeline is expected to be received within two months after data submission.

CBI CEO Oh Kyungwon said, “It is rare in Korea for investors or pharmaceutical companies to strategically invest in overseas bio companies and have them listed on NASDAQ within about a year. Kineta-Yumanity is a company developing drugs in three fields?immuno-oncology, neurodegenerative treatments, and antiviral therapies?in partnership with global big pharma, and upon NASDAQ listing, several milestones and positive events are expected within a few months,” adding, “We expect a swift merger within this year.”

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