Less than two years after going public via a reverse merger with troubled cystic fibrosis company Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc., Yumanity Therapeutics, Inc. is winding up its operations by selling off its lead clinical candidate and preclinical neuroscience pipeline to Johnson & Johnson and merging with Kineta, Inc. in a transaction that will confer Yumanity’s NASDAQ listing to the privately held cancer immunotherapy firm.
Upon close of the all-stock transaction announced 6 June, the resulting company will be named Kineta Inc., based in Seattle and led by Kineta’s current management team. Kineta will focus on its lead candidate, investigational new drug (IND) application-ready, VISTA-blocking immunotherapy KVA12.1 as well as preclinical antibodies targeting CD27 and CD24. The company also will continue a Yumanity collaboration inked with Merck & Co., Inc. in June 2020 focused on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobal dementia (FTLD)
