Novo Holdings Leads Kivu Bioscience’s $92 Million Series A Financing to Support Advancement of Next-Generation Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Funding to support clinical development of multiple antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) programs

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, – Oct 28, 2024 – Novo Holdings, a leading life science investor, today announced that it has led a $92 million Series A financing for Kivu Bioscience (“Kivu”). Kivu is an early-stage biotech company developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) programs to deliver best-in-class therapeutics. Its assets are in late-stage preclinical studies and target areas of high unmet medical need by providing increased stability and precision, in addition to addressing the discontinuation and dose-reduction rates seen with existing ADCs.

Through a licensing agreement with Synaffix, Kivu’s ADC programs utilize the proprietary site-specific linker-payload technology GlycoConnect, which was developed to enhance efficacy and improve safety and tolerability in the treatment of a wide variety of cancer types. GlycoConnect couples the linker specifically to asparagine-297 to deliver a clean, highly homogenous product that is more stable and significantly reduces off-target side effects. This approach, which has been validated by positive clinical data, widens the therapeutic window while improving the safety profile for patients.

The funding will be used to advance Kivu’s multiple oncology programs, including its Topo1i-based ADC pipeline, which is set to begin Phase 1 trials in 2025.

Daniel O’Connell, M.D., Ph.D., Partner, Venture Investments, Novo Holdings said: “ADCs are an established modality for treating cancer, but tolerability issues limit the pace of advancement in the space. The early data from Kivu suggested superior stability of the constructs, clearly pointing toward targets that have been pursued by earlier generations of ADCs, but which failed due to high rates of drug discontinuation. That data in the hands of this outstanding management team tells an incredibly compelling story – one we are excited to support. We see tremendous opportunity for the Kivu pipeline to produce a new generation of targeted therapies as best-in-class novel ADCs across a broad range of cancers.”

Mohit Trikha, Ph.D., President and Chief Operating Officer of Kivu Bioscience said: “We're excited to have the backing of this top-tier syndicate, who share our vision for developing kinder, gentler ADC therapies that are safer and more effective for cancer patients. Our next-generation ADCs address key limitations of current treatments, particularly non-target mediated toxicity and AEs driven by Fc-enabled constructs. This funding allows us to accelerate the development of our Topo1i-based ADC pipeline to the clinic, where we plan to quickly differentiate Kivu’s products from past endeavors. We are inspired by patients and driven by data to accelerate transformative medicines.”

The financing round was led by Novo Holdings, with participation from Gimv, Red Tree Venture Capital, HealthCap as well as existing investors BioGeneration Ventures, M Ventures, and Innovatiefonds Brabant.

About Novo Holdings A/S

Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company that is responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novonesis A/S (Novozymes A/S) and manages an investment portfolio with a long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure and private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seeds, Venture, Growth, Asia, Planetary Health Investments and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life science companies at all stages of development. As of year-end 2023, Novo Holdings had total assets of EUR 149 billion. www.novoholdings.dk.

About Kivu Bioscience

Kivu Bioscience is pioneering next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in oncology. The company’s proprietary linker-payload technology delivers enhanced safety and efficacy, minimizing off-target effects to improve patient outcomes. With multiple ADC programs in development and a team of industry veterans, Kivu is advancing its first two lead candidates to clinical trials expected to begin in 2025. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit www.kivubioscience.com.