Kinarus announces CHF 20 million convertible bond issue

The investor, YA II PN, Ltd (Cayman Islands), is a tax vehicle of Yorkville Advisors Global LP. Under the terms of the agreement, Yorkville agrees to purchase up to CHF20m aggregate principal amount of debt securities convertible into Kinarus shares over the next 36 months.

Basel-based Kinarus Therapeutics Holding AG plans to use the money to advance the Phase II development of a drug combination its p38 MAP kinase inhibitor KIN001, which was licenced from Roche AG, and the approved diabetes drug pioglitazone in the indication of wet macular degeneration (wAMD), which accounts for about 15% of all AMD diseases. The goal of this not yet started clinical trial is to develop a therapy that can extend the intervals between the usually four-week injections of the approved AMD drugs Lucentis or Eylea by two months. The phase II trial will enrol up to 100 patients who have unilateral wet age-related macular degeneration and who have already had two failed attempts to extend the injection intervals to six months.

As with all of Kinarus Therapeutics’ pipeline candidates, the aim of this drug combination is to obtain low-risk approval for the in-licensed drug in a promising indication. AMD is one of the most common causes of vision loss and blindness worldwide, and even the most common in industrialised countries. While the course of so-called wet AMD can be alleviated well with medication today, the dry form of the disease has so far eluded effective therapy. However, new active substances from the group of complement inhibitors tested in clinical phase II give reason to hope that the progression of the dry late form of AMD can also be slowed down in the future, as was stated at the annual conference of the German Ophthalmological Society (DOG).