Treating Autoimmune Diseases With Smarter Cell Therapies

“We're looking at cell therapies for the treatment of autoimmune disease. Our lead indication is a CAR T so it's very similar to the ones that have been in the clinic for oncology, and we are looking at using them starting with the autologous platform... We are also looking at regulatory T cells which can suppress the immune response.”

The 7th Annual CAR-TCR Summit 2022, held September 19-22 in Boston, Massachusetts, facilitated conversations between industry, academia, and patient advocacy groups ongoing challenges and work to be done with cell therapies in oncology and other indications and showcased emerging data and technologies in these spaces.

One such company in attendance was Kyverna Therapeutics, which is developing cell therapies for autoimmune indications with candidates that will soon be advanced into the clinic. Its lead technology is a chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T), while asynthetic regulatory T cell (synReg T cell) for B-cell autoimmune disorders is in the discovery phase. Both technologies are developed by use of Kyverna’s SmarTcell genetic engineering platform.

CGTLive spoke with Karen Walker, chief technology officer, Kyverna, to learn more about the company’s technologies and platforms. She also discussed challenges in the space and how Kyverna is aiming to meet them.