Dive Brief:

• Kivu Biosciences, a San Francisco-based biotechnology startup developing targeted drugs for cancer, has raised $92 million in a Series A round, the company said Monday.
• Kivu will use the funds to advance technology it claims can help address some of the current limitations of antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs. Its technology, Kivu says, can yield ADCs that are more precise and stable when traveling to their targets in the body, which should reduce the risk of side effects. Kivu plans to start its first clinical trial in solid tumors next year.
• Novo Holdings led Kivu's Series A round, which also involved six other venture firms, including Gimv, Red Tree Venture Capital and BioGeneration Ventures.

Dive Insight:

ADCs, which chemically link a tumor-killing toxin to a targeted antibody, have captured the attention of biotech investors and pharmaceutical companies. While the drug type has been studied for decades, a series of recent technical advancements, clinical successes and approvals have driven interest higher, leading to dealmaking and the formation of new companies with twists on the concept.

Some startups are using different payloads or linker molecules, for instance. Others are merging ADC drugs with different technologies. All aim to overcome some of the shortcomings of existing ADCs with drugs that are more precise or potent.

Kivu is joining in. Chief Operating Officer Mohit Trikha said that ADC tolerability has limited how large of a dose developers can safely use, or cause people to stop treatment. Unstable linker molecules can also cause ADCs to release their payload prematurely, blunting their benefit.

Kivu is using technology from Synaffix, which Lonza bought in 2023, to develop its ADCs. It claims to have proprietary linkers that stay stable for longer, ensuring the payload they’re attached to — a commonly used ADC toxin called a topoisomerase inhibitor — is precisely delivered.

“This technology allows us to target tumors and avoid systemic toxicity,” Trikha said in an interview. “Sometimes I refer to this as ‘kindler, gentler ADCs,’ because when you think about a cancer patient you have to think about a benefit-to-risk ratio.”

Kivu is zeroing in on solid tumors earlier ADC technologies have struggled to treat due to “toxicity and efficacy limitations,” said Trikha, a former venture partner at Apple Tree Partners and oncology executive at AbbVie before that. The company didn’t say which specific tumors it’s starting with, however.

The company’s name is a reference to Lake Kivu, which is on the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The lake sits to the side of an active volcano and contains hundreds of cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide and methane. Though Lake Kivu is currently stable, it has the potential to one day explode in what’s termed a limnic eruption, releasing a massive cloud of greenhouse gases.

The company believes that situation resembles the tense work of unlocking the “powerful potential of ADCs, while carefully managing [their] risks and side effects,” Trikha said.