GREENVILLE S.C.– Kiyatec Inc. announced today a closing of its Series C funding round totaling US$18 million from new and existing investors. New investor Bruker (Nasdaq: BRKR) led the financing and was joined by existing investors Seae Ventures, VentureSouth, and LabCorp (NYSE: LH). Use of funds will focus on accelerating adoption of the company’s commercially available clinical testing and preclinical pharma services, which add value across the life cycle of successful cancer drugs.
Kiyatec is an established leader in functional precision oncology, in which clinically relevant laboratory models measure the response of living cells to cancer drugs. In this emerging field, the gold standard for performance is direct correlation between measured response in the lab and real world, patient-matched clinical outcomes. “Transforming therapy selection for cancer patients – which functional precision oncology is positioned to deliver – relies on meaningfully connecting cell death in the lab to matched cells also dying in the patient’s body, i.e., to clinical response,” said Kiyatec CEO Matt Gevaert, PhD. “This unlocks the potential to significantly improve cancer outcomes, a mission we’re proud to be advancing.” With respect to published, peer-reviewed data demonstrating such clinical correlation in solid tumors, Kiyatec’s platform has industry leading performance and a clinically attractive 7-10 day turnaround.
Kiyatec’s analytically validated 3D-Predict™ Glioma test informs therapy selection in the clinic for glioblastoma (GBM) and other high grade glioma patients and is commercially available (US*). In May 2021 the company published clinical data demonstrating the test’s accurate and statistically significant prediction of high-grade glioma patients’ individual responses to cancer drugs; notably, to drugs they had not yet been treated with. In this cancer indication, known for its low survival, newly diagnosed patients under study lived six months longer when identified by 3D-Predict™ Glioma as responders to standard of care drug therapy as compared to those identified as non-responders. Earlier this year at annual meetings of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO, June) and the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO, November), Kiyatec expanded its clinical evidence of continuing excellent test performance. In October, the company also announced a unique strategic partnership with NICO Corporation, a neurosurgical medical device innovator, to facilitate improved tissue quality as a success factor in prediction of tumor response to cancer chemotherapies and targeted agents.
As a complement to its clinical testing, Kiyatec’s preclinical 3D cell culture services augment pharma clients’ drug development by providing clinically relevant assessment of primary human drug response prior to clinical studies. With demonstrated strong clinical correlation, Kiyatec’s platform addresses significant limitations of historic preclinical testing approaches that have lower correlation to patient outcomes. The advantages of its clinically correlated platform, and its applicability to complex immune oncology therapies, are drivers of Kiyatec’s growing revenue in preclinical services. Accommodating this growth is well timed with respect to the company’s recently expanded laboratory and office space as the anchor tenant of Main Street Labs in vibrant downtown Greenville, SC.
