Paris-based kyron.bio secures €5.5 million to tackle drug efficiency and safety

French BioTech company kyron.bio announced today a €5.5 million Seed funding round to tackle the issues of varying efficacy and dangerous side effects in current drug development, using control of sugar molecules – also known as glycans.

The funding round was led by HCVC, with the participation of Verve Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Saras Capital, and other angel investors.

Dr Emilia McLaughlin, CEO and Founder of kyron.bio, said: “To date, glycans have been massively under-exploited, limiting their potential in drug design. By achieving comprehensive control over glycosylation in a fully scalable manner, we have unlocked the possibility to use precision glycosylation in drug design. This transforms glycans into a design tool for the first time, opening up new treatment avenues for patients. Securing this fundraising round brings us closer to our goal of delivering precision glycan-engineered therapeutics to patients.”

Founded in 2022, kyron.bio, based at Paris Biotech Santé in the Cochin Hospital, is innovating precision control of glycosylation in antibody therapeutics to enhance functionality. Leveraging both proprietary cell-based systems and structure-guided design, the company is tapping into the potential of N-glycans in oncology, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and more.

Dr McLaughlin’s experience studying rare single-cell organisms during her PhD at Institut Pasteur Paris has largely informed kyron.bio’s approach to drug development. The startup, under her leadership, has developed the “first-ever scalable, patent-protected method to unlock this molecular design problem“.

The company’s vision is to open a new design space for next-generation therapeutics using glycans and to partner with pharmaceutical companies to develop safer, more potent treatments for patients.

According to kyron.bio, one of the major problems with antibody therapeutics is the patient’s immune system recognising the treatment as foreign and attacking it. This immune response can be harmful and render the therapeutic ineffective. As drug design becomes more complex and therefore more foreign to the human immune system, this issue is an increasing burden to biopharma companies.

This unwanted immune attack is problematic for patients, particularly those with chronic diseases that are treated over a long period of time. It also prevents many novel therapies from making it through the critical Phase I stage of clinical trials, where drug safety is assessed.

kyron.bio has developed a platform to control the process of N-glycosylation, the cellular mechanism that adds glycans to the surface of therapeutics. In standard biomanufacturing, this process is reportedly inconsistent, producing a mix of glycan structures that can trigger immune responses or reduce therapeutic efficacy. kyron.bio’s approach enables the precise use of specific glycans to prevent unwanted immune attack.

This platform is offered as a scalable, plug-and-play solution compatible with standard biopharma manufacturing techniques.

This approach consists of two key elements:

• Novel engineered cell lines: Genetic manipulation of the cells used as production factories (known as Chinese Hamster Ovary cells) to produce antibodies to enable, for the first time, complete control over the glycosylation process.
• Proprietary glycan-engineering toolbox: Engineering of the antibody therapeutic itself to prevent unwanted immune attack and enhance performance, while generating new intellectual property (IP).

Together, these technologies allow kyron.bio’s platform to reportedly achieve over 97% consistency in glycan structures.

Alexis Houssou, Founder & Managing Partner at HCVC, said: “kyron.bio’s technology bridges a massive gap in therapeutics design. Their breakthrough in glycan control could shift the paradigm for antibody therapies, and we’re proud to support their vision.”

The funds will accelerate the development of kyron.bio’s proprietary glycan-engineering platform, expand the kyron.bio team and fuel preclinical studies. Additionally, the funding coincides with the launch of the company’s EIC Transition project, backed by the European Innovation Council.

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