Gene therapy biotech Kriya Therapeutics has secured $313 million in a new series fundraise.
The private U.S. company disclosed the equity financing in a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Aug. 15.
The financing is one of this year’s largest for private biotechs so far, surpassed only by Verdiva Bio’s $410 million launch, MapLight Therapeutics’ $372 million series D and Eikon Therapeutics’ $350 million series D.
Kriya has a pipeline of nine programs spanning neurology, metabolic health and ophthalmology, with two of the assets in clinical development, according to its website.
As of publication, Kriya has not responded to Fierce Biotech’s questions about how the new money will be used.
Back in 2022, the biotech scored the fifth largest private biotech fundraise of 2022, raking in a $270 million series C. That round was boosted by a further $150 million extension in July 2023, bringing the round's total to $430 million.
In 2022 and 2023, the company also bought Redpin Therapeutics and snapped up Tramontane Therapeutics, both for undisclosed sums. From Redpin, Kriya gained neurology candidates for epilepsy and trigeminal neuralgia, while Tramontane added a metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis program.
“We have an ambitious goal to advance gene therapies to highly prevalent diseases that affect millions of people around the world,” Kriya co-founder and CEO Shankar Ramaswamy, M.D., said in a 2023 fundraising release. The CEO is the brother of Vivek Ramaswamy, founder of Roivant Sciences and aspiring American politician.
“In order to make gene therapies a cornerstone of mainstream medicine, we have built a fully integrated engine to overcome industry-wide challenges that have constrained research, development and manufacturing in the field of gene therapy,” Kriya’s Ramaswamy said in the release.
The fundraise is good news for the gene therapy field, which has suffered greatly as investor enthusiasm surrounding the modality has largely dissipated over the last year.