Kuur inks $185m acquisition

Kuur Therapeutics, a US-based cancer immunotherapy developer advancing research from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, agreed to an up-to $185m acquisition by biopharmaceutical firm Athenex yesterday.
Athenex will pay $70m upfront, primarily in stock, and up to $115m in milestone payments that may be paid, at the corporate’s discretion, in stock, cash, or a combination of both.
Founded in 2007 as Cell Medica, Kuur Therapeutics is working on off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor natural killer T (CAR-NKT) cell immunotherapies to treat solid and haematological malignancies.
Kuur is building on research by Leonid Metelitsa, professor of paediatrics – oncology at Baylor College and Texas Children’s Hospital. It has two assets in the clinic, aimed at indications including neuroblastoma tumours, B cell lymphomas, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
A preclinical candidate, KUR-503, is under development in the laboratory of Andras Heczey, assistant professor of paediatrics in the Section of Haematology-Oncology at Baylor College and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Baylor College joined commercialisation firm IP Group and asset manager Schroder Adveq to supply an undisclosed sum at the time of Kuur’s rebrand in March 2020.
The spinout previously completed a $73m series C round in 2017 from Touchtone Innovations, since acquired by IP Group, Invesco Perpetual and the now-defunct Woodford Investment Management.
Touchstone, then known as Imperial Innovations, led a $78.9m series B round in 2014, with participation from Invesco Perpetual and Woodford Investment Management.
Touchstone also led a $26.5m series A round in 2012, while Invesco Perpetual and Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas also took part. Wellcome Trust converted a previous loan into equity at the same time.
In 2007, Touchstone supplied an undisclosed amount of seed funding.