Mystery solved: Mysthera Theapeutics launches with $3.5m

Mysthera Therapeutics AG was just founded in Basel, Switzerland by Forty51 Ventures with $3.5m seed capital. Pursuing a first-in-class therapeutic approach, Mysthera plans to reshape the treatment landscape for autoimmune disease by tackling a master kinase in signal transduction. The so called PIM kinase. Its inhibition uniquely and selectively modulates immune cell function in multiple lineages associated with complex disease. The company’s pipeline includes pre-clinical stage, PIM kinase inhibitors in-licensed from Inflection Biosciences Ltd.

PIM kinases are gateway kinases in multiple immune cell lineages (including B and T effector cells) driving excessive inflammation. Elevated PIM kinase may further contribute to the formation and maintenance of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) which are associated with disease severity and progression, as the company states. The area has a huge impact: Autoimmune diseases impact over 23 million in US alone. Despite recent progress and novel treatment options, there are still issues to solve like poor response rates and adverse safety profiles of currently available treatment medicines.

“Leveraging our deep expertise in PIM kinase and immunology, we are pursuing a highly differentiated approach to tackle complex autoimmune diseases. We believe this will result in new treatments to change the lives of patients globally”, said Darren Cunningham, co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Mysthera Therapeutics. “PIM inhibition most critically hits effector B and T cells at the site of inflammation and inhibits their activation” added Dr. Stefan Haak, co-Founder and SVP R&D at Mysthera Therapeutics. “Our approach is uniquely positioned to also silence the essential cross-talk between these cells.”

Forty51 Ventures is a Basel-based venture capital firm with its core strategy focused on company formation and early-stage investments in biotech with geographic emphasis on Switzerland, France and Germany. Forty51 Ventures leads and co-leads early financing rounds Seed and Series A.

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