KateTx: sending more AAV to muscle, less to liver

KateTx emerged from stealth Thursday with a platform to systemically deliver muscle-targeted, liver de-targeted AAVs, and a licensing deal with Astellas that could help the pharma overcome a liver toxicity issue that derailed its earlier attempt at a XLMTM gene therapy.

Recombinant AAVs generated using naturally occurring capsids are largely sequestered in the liver after systemic injection. Kate Therapeutics Inc. debuted with a $51 million series A round co-led by  Westlake Village Biopartners and Versant Ventures to use directed evolution to identify capsids with tropism for skeletal and cardiac muscle, and then further modify them for potency and liver de-targeting...