Kyver­na surges af­ter IPO, and CEO lays out plans for cell ther­a­py in im­mune dis­eases

Kyver­na Ther­a­peu­tics start­ed its first day as a pub­lic biotech on a strong note, with its shares $KYTX ris­ing more than 50% Thurs­day af­ter­noon af­ter pric­ing at $22 and rais­ing $319 mil­lion for the com­pa­ny.

But don’t call the Nas­daq IPO an overnight suc­cess. It took five years to get to this point and a “Kyver­na vil­lage,” CEO Pe­ter Maag said in an in­ter­view with End­points News short­ly af­ter the shares com­menced trad­ing. The Gilead-backed Cal­i­for­nia biotech had raised about $170 mil­lion on the pri­vate side, in­clud­ing a Se­ries B ex­ten­sion last Au­gust.

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