What You Should Know:
– Vyriad, Inc. has secured the final $25M of its Series B financing, bringing the total round to $85M led by Mr. Harry Stine of Stine Seed Farms, Inc.
– The funding will power the first-in-human trials of VV169, an in vivo CAR-T therapy for multiple myeloma that modifies immune cells directly inside the patient’s body. This approach eliminates the complex, expensive lab manufacturing required by current CAR-T treatments, potentially offering a scalable, “off-the-shelf” cure via a single intravenous injection.
The “In Vivo” Revolution: No Lab Required
Current “ex vivo” CAR-T therapies are bespoke and labor-intensive. They require a personalized manufacturing slot for every single patient, leading to bottlenecks that leave desperate patients waiting weeks or months.
Vyriad’s approach, known as in vivo CAR-T, uses a modified lentivirus (LV-169) to act as a delivery truck.
- The Mechanism: The virus is engineered to seek out and bind specifically to T-cells inside the body.
- The Payload: Once attached, it delivers a genetic instruction manual that teaches the T-cell to spot B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a protein found on multiple myeloma cancer cells.
- The Result: The patient’s body becomes its own manufacturing facility, generating killer cells within days rather than weeks.
“Our work builds on years of research and optimization around cell-specific targeting… the core capabilities needed to enable effective CAR T therapies,” said Dr. Stephen Russell, Vyriad co-founder and CEO.
Why It Matters: Scalability and Access
The implications for cost and access are massive. “By combining high specificity and blood stability… this approach eliminates complex ex vivo manufacturing,” the company stated.
Because VV169 is an “off-the-shelf” product stored in a vial, it can be administered at a local community clinic rather than a specialized academic medical center. This could democratize access to life-saving immunotherapy for patients in rural or underserved areas who currently cannot travel for weeks of hospitalization.
Preclinical data presented at the ASH 2025 Annual Meeting showed that VV169 completely eliminated multiple myeloma in humanized mouse models, even at the lowest doses.
