New company KinSea spun out from research at the Department of Chemistry and partners
Founders: Professors Bengt Erik Haug, UiB, and Kine Østnes Hansen, Annette Bayer, Jeanette Hammer Andersen, and Espen Holst Hansen, all UiT Photo: KinSea
The road from research laboratory to actually founding a company with the aim to bring a new therapeutic agent to the market is exceedingly long and thorny, and we are very pleased to congratulate Bengt Erik and his collaborators in Tromsø with reaching this milestone with KinSea Lead Discovery AS!
The company, KinSea, is formed on the basis of a proprietary drug class developed by the founders and is based on a naturally occurring molecule isolated from a benthic animal taken from the Barents Sea. The molecules have potential as pan-mutant FLT3 kinase inhibitors for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), including drug-resistant mutations that are traditionally difficult to treat.
The effect has been shown in an animal model for AML, and the founders have also shown that the drugs have superior properties compared to existing FLT3 inhibitors, including broad activity against drug-induced resistant FLT3 mutants, improved selectivity and high activity in vivo. KinSea will further develop the technology to a preclinical candidate that will be ready for advanced preclinical and clinical testing through license agreements with partners. The company also wants to utilize UiT’s collection of bioactive substances from marine organisms to gradually expand its portfolio within drug development to become a sustainable supplier of promising drug candidates based on discoveries in our northern sea areas.
KinSea have ambitions beyond the specific drug classes described above, and aim to establish a broad portfolio of drug development projects based on the partners» unique access to bioactive substances from the Arctic and expertise in drug development. Quoting Bengt Erik Haug, professor in the Bioresources and Pharmaceutical chemistry group at our department, and now also inventor, Gründer and research director at KinSea: We look forward to continuing our long-standing collaboration in marine bioprospecting and taking our FLT3 inhibitors further through the development process towards clinical testing.
The project has been developed in a collaboration between UiT Norges arktiske universitet, Universitetet I Bergen, and Lead Discovery Center GmbH through several projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the regional biotechnology program MABIT. KinSea is initially financed through a convertible loan from KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I GmbH & Co KG, a German venture fund with a focus on early-stage investments within drug development. The investor composition will be expanded in the time to come.
