While it’s been a rocky year for many, everything is smooth sailing at Kriya Therapeutics—one of biotech’s top money raisers last year—as it continues its acquisition streak. This time, Kriya has snapped up Tramontane Therapeutics and will be developing a nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) program sourced from the gene therapy biotech.
Kriya now wholly owns the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, or UAB) spinout and its neurodegenerative- and metabolic-disease-focused portfolio of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) assets. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Tramontane’s lead program is an adeno-associated virus-vector-powered therapy made to express a consistent level of the native FGF21 protein, which can have beneficial metabolic effects across several organs and is a biological target in NASH, a severe form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. NASH can progress to fibrosis, also known as liver scarring, and potentially lead to irreversible damage known as cirrhosis or even liver failure.
"We are very impressed with the data associated with the Tramontane FGF21 program, which has consistently established strong efficacy and durability across multiple validated animal models of obesity and NASH," Kriya co-founder and CEO Shankar Ramaswamy, M.D., said about the one-time intramuscular gene therapy. "The addition of Tramontane’s FGF21 program strategically aligns with our metabolic disease portfolio which also includes a one-time gene therapy candidate for insulin-dependent diabetes."
Kriya touts a pipeline of gene therapies for ophthalmology, neurology and metabolic disease, but this marks the company’s first dive into the crowded NASH space. Currently, there aren’t any approved treatments available for stopping or reversing the condition, with Vantage estimating that the market could grow to $108.4 billion worldwide by 2030.
Kriya’s portfolio, meanwhile, is bolstered by the more than $600 million raised to date. Last year, the biotech scored the fifth largest private biotech fundraise of 2022, raking in a $270 million series C in May of that year. That round was boosted by a further $150 million extension this past July, bringing the round's total to $430 million.
The company’s strategy is to build a gene therapy provider, starting with the manufacturing footprint. Just three months after closing its series A in May 2020, the company secured an operational manufacturing facility in North Carolina. Since then, Kriya has bought up smaller gene therapy companies and penned new licensing pacts to bulk up its early-stage pipeline.
In November, the biotech bought out Redpin Therapeutics for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition added neurology treatments to Kriya’s pipeline, namely for epilepsy and trigeminal neuralgia.