By Bill Alpert

Biotech firm Kymera Therapeutics announced strong results Monday, in the first human tests of a pill for autoimmune ailments like dermatitis and asthma. Its drug seems about a year ahead of other firms developing pills in the hot class of drugs called "protein degraders", which can block the on-switch for troublesome genes.

The Phase 1 trial for the code-named KT-621 was mainly a safety study, which found that the drug was as benign as a placebo in terms of side effects. But other measures hinted that KT-621 may prove as effective as the big-selling injectable Dupixent from Regeneron and Sanofi, while potentially safer than popular pills like AbbVie's Rinvoq.

In premarket trading Monday, Kymera stock jumped 12.9%, to $33.49.

"We have an oral drug that seems to behave not only as safely, but also as effectively as a megablockbuster drug like Dupixent," Kymera CEO Nello Mainolfi told Barron's. Founded about 10 years ago, Kymera is one of a number of biotechs developing protein degraders as oral treatments for immune afflictions or cancer.

The Boston company plans a webcast Monday, at 8 a.m. Eastern time.

KT-621 selectively targets the protein STAT6, which is the last link in activating the genes that unleash immune cells that cause inflammation in the skin disorder called atopic dermatitis, as well as in asthma. Over the years, companies had tried to reach STAT6 with other drug technologies, but those efforts failed. Kymera's degrader almost completely eliminated STAT6 molecules in the blood of the Phase 1 study participants.

Immune-modulating drugs that are already on the market aimed at dermatitis include injectables like Dupixent, first approved in 2018, as well as Adbry from Denmark's Leo Pharma, and Ebglyss from Eli Lilly.

Those drugs are antibodies that block cell-surface receptors that start the activation sequence of inflammation genes in cells. An April note by Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Schmidt estimates that dermatitis sales of those drugs totaled about $15 billion in 2024, and could grow to $25 billion by 2030.

Since 2022, there have also been pills approved for dialing down dermatitis autoimmune signals. These so-called JAK inhibitors, block a cell molecule that is the link upstream from STAT6 in inflammation gene activation. But safety labels for JAK inhibitors like Rinvoq and Pfizer's Cibinqo have black-box warnings about cancer, strokes and heart-attacks, so patients must be monitored with blood tests. Sales of those drugs for dermatitis were about $1.3 billion last year, Schmidt estimates.

Concerns about injections and safety have limited the use of immune treatments to a small percentage of those suffering dermatitis. So Schmidt guesses a pill with Dupixent-like effectiveness, and no safety worries, could win at least 10% of annual sales in dermatitis by 2030 -- or about $3 billion.

By those criteria, the Phase 1 results for Kymera's pill bode well. While being as effective at eliminating STAT6 in the blood as Dupixent, KT-621 reduced another biomarker of inflammatory disease -- called TARC -- by 37%. Analyst Schmidt had predicted investors would be happy if TARC fell by 15% to 30%.

Like most publicly-held biotechs, Kymera hopes to cheer up its investors. From a post-IPO high near 92 in 202o, the stock sagged with the sector, to close Friday at 29.64. The company dropped some projects recently, to ensure that the $775 million of cash it had in March will last into 2028. Guggenheim's Schmidt rates Kymera a Buy, with a 12-month target of $52.

Reaching STAT6 with an oral drug is a milestone for the industry, said CEO Mainolfi. And for Kymera, removes risk from its bet on protein degraders.

Write to Bill Alpert at william.alpert@barrons.com

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June 02, 2025 07:44 ET (11:44 GMT)

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