Flag­ship un­veils gut-fo­cused up­start Kin­tai, with for­mer GSK ex­ec as chief

Pro­lif­ic ven­ture group Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing has spawned a fresh bio­phar­ma play­er with a for­mer big phar­ma ex­ec at the helm: Kin­tai Ther­a­peu­tics. The Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts-based com­pa­ny is fo­cus­ing on the gut — but it is not lim­it­ing it­self to mi­cro­bio­ta and look­ing in­stead at the in­ter­play be­tween mi­crobes, im­mune cells, and neu­rons in the re­gion, to har­ness a new class of ther­a­peu­tics.

“The gut—which is home to tril­lions of bac­te­ria, 70% of our im­mune cells, and 500 mil­lion neu­rons—is tru­ly a com­mand cen­ter, trans­mit­ting con­stant mes­sages and sig­nals through­out the body that af­fect our propen­si­ty for dis­ease,” said David Berry, gen­er­al part­ner at Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing and co-founder of Kin­tai Ther­a­peu­tics in a state­ment.

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