Cynata Therapeutics is developing new cell therapies to treat chronic disease and acute conditions

The Australian Government’s Biomedical Translation Fund (BTF) is enabling BioScience Managers to invest in companies like Cynata Therapeutics.

Learn how BioScience Managers worked with Cynata Therapeutics to develop their Cymerus platform technology.

Transcript

[Image opens on a city skyline against an overcast sky. Images move to street level, where Kilian Kelly is walking with a briefcase and enters an office building. Image changes to Kilian in an office talking to camera and text appears: Kilian Kelly, CEO, Cynata Therapeutics. Image changes to Kilian walking up a staircase to enter a meeting room. Two women are seated at the table and there is a large screen displaying a presentation of Cynata Therapeutics]

Kilian Kelly: BioScience Managers and Cynata Therapeutics are working together on next generation stem cell therapies to change the lives of millions of people around the world living with serious medical disorders. So we are currently developing our products to treat four very different clinical conditions.

[Image of Kilian speaking to camera. A graphic appears of a knee-joint for Osteoarthritis, followed by a graphic for Acute graft-versus-host disease, followed by a graphic for Diabetic foot ulcers. Image then moves to Kilian speaking in front of a screen with a laptop in hand.]

One of them is osteoarthritis of the knee, which is a condition where the cartilage in the knee joint degenerates over time.

The second is a condition called acute graft-versus-host disease, which is a complication of bone marrow transplantation, which is a procedure that's used to treat certain blood cancers, like leukemia and lymphoma.

The third condition is called diabetic foot ulcers. This is a condition in chronic diabetics, where they have very poor blood flow in their lower limbs, and it can lead to these non-healing wounds on their feet, which can cause a lot of problems, including amputation.

[Image returns to Kilian sitting, speaking to camera and a graphic appears of of kidneys. The image cuts to a close-up of a laptop displaying a presentation of ‘A New Standard In Cell Therapy’.]

And, finally, we have a product for patients receiving a kidney transplant, and the aim of this one is to help prevent the rejection of the transplanted kidney in these patients.

The Cymerus technology is a new way of making stem cell therapies consistently and at scale.

[Image of Kilian sitting at a desk typing on a laptop. The laptop screen shows a series of slides: Here’s what makes Cynata truly unique, and Conventional MSC Manufacturing. Image returns to Kilian talking to camera, followed by a close-up of a journal ‘Nature Medicine’ and Kilian turning pages and pointing to specific sections in the journal to one of the women in the room.]

The importance of it is that conventional ways of making stem cell therapies rely on an ongoing supply of new donors. So we have a stem cell bank that came from one blood donor on one occasion, and we can keep making our product on an ongoing basis from that same stem cell bank.

[Image returns to Kilian sitting, speaking to camera and a graphic appears of ‘1 blood donor’ to ‘Scalable therapies’ to ‘Millions of patients’,]

The reason that that's important is it means that we can do it very consistently, 'cause we're using the same starting material every time, and it's also hugely scalable. So we believe that we can use this process to mass-produce these therapies, and allow them to be used by many patients, millions of patients, around the world.

[Image changes to Jeremy Curnock Cook walking in the city, entering a building foyer and then an elevator. Image then cuts to Jeremy sitting in an office with a large window, speaking to camera and text appears: Jeremy Curnock Cook, Founder and Managing Partner, BioScience Managers.]

Jeremy Curnock Cook: BioScience Managers is an investment group that looks after the deployment of money into healthcare programs and projects and development.

[Image of Jeremy speaking to camera followed by a close-up of a computer monitor displaying the BioScience Managers website. The image returns to Jeremy speaking to camera with a graphic indicating ‘Improving Healthcare’.]

It's a very exciting space, particularly the context of changing the face of medicine, the whole idea of making people better, the whole idea of improving healthcare.

[Image moves to a laboratory setting with a close-up of a hand in a blue glove with forceps retrieving a sample from a container emitting vapor. Image changes to a close-up of hands in white gloves manipulating a syringe with a red substance. Image then moves to a person in a white coat with a stethoscope looking at a tablet and documents.]

Jeremy: Scientists need help to build companies, because building them is complicated. Most who come up with the ideas, they rarely ask themselves how that is going to be manufactured? How is it going to be made? How will it be delivered? How is it going to be used by the doctors?

[Image of Jeremy speaking to camera. Image changes to Jeremy approaching a large window in the room and looking out onto the city skyline. Image then moves back to Jeremy speaking to camera.]

That's what we try and answer for them. Support of the Biomedical Translation Fund has allowed BioScience Managers to invest in a company like Cynata, and ultimately deliver a great outcome for Australia in Medicine. The future depends upon those sorts of innovations at the investment-level, being repeated and continued.

[Image of Kilian Kelly speaking to camera followed by a close-up of a laptop screen displaying a ‘Cynata Therapeutics’ presentation. Image changes to a close-up of his hands typing and then back to Kilian working on a laptop, and a close-up of his laptop screen displaying ‘A New Standard In Cell Therapy’.]

Kilian Kelly: In order to take a product from discovery right through to commercial launch, ultimately, what we need to do is to convince regulatory authorities that we can make the product consistently, and that we have clinical evidence that it's both safe and effective.

[Image of Kilian speaking to camera]

The future for Cynata is extremely bright, we are positioned to be the leading stem cell and regenerative medicine company, and that's thanks to the funding from BioScience Managers and the Biomedical Translation Fund.

[End screen with blue background with the Australian Government logo prominently displayed and information about The Biomedical Translation Fund delivered by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources on behalf of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing]

The commercialisation challenge

Cynata Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapies through its proprietary Cymerus platform. 

MSC therapies shows significant potential in treating various medical conditions. However, manufacturing these therapies consistently and at commercial scale is a challenge when using traditional methods.

The Cymerus platform enables Cynata to mass-produce high quality MSC therapies consistently and at scale from a single donor. It enables them to preserve the potency of the therapies even if they are producing large quantities of them. 

Cynata is using this platform technology to develop MSC therapies that can:

  • treat acute graft-versus-host disease
  • treat diabetic foot ulcers
  • treat osteoarthritis
  • help prevent the rejection of transplanted kidney.

They are aiming to deliver these therapies to millions of people around the world. 

Support from BioScience Managers and the Biomedical Translation Fund

The Biomedical Translation Fund (BTF) played a vital role in enabling BioScience Managers to invest in Cynata Therapeutics. The support is helping Cynata to advance multiple clinical-stage programs to further develop the MSC therapies that can help treat the medical conditions mentioned.

The BTF provides companies with venture capital through licensed private sector fund managers. It helps to develop biomedical discoveries into tangible products, services and outcomes. The program contributes around half of the investment capital for funds to invest in biomedical discoveries that commercialise health and medical research outcomes.

Our department is delivering the BTF on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. A total of $501.25 million is allocated for the program between government and private sector funding.

As a co-investment model, the Australian Government has provided a way for venture capital firms to invest in cutting-edge biotechnology at an earlier stage.