Kytopen sparks $3.6m reaction

Kytopen, a US-based gene-modified cell therapy manufacturing platform spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, secured $3.6m on Tuesday in a seed round backed by The Engine Fund, the VC vehicle allied with MIT-run accelerator The Engine.
Venture firm Horizons Ventures and unnamed angel investors also participated in the round.
Founded in 2017, Kytopen is working on a platform called Flowfect for non-viral cell engineering that would be capable of processing and modifying batches of microorganisms within seconds.
The high throughput would support the development of gene-modified cell therapies, a promising means for addressing untreatable diseases that faces commercialisation bottlenecks related to efficiency, reproducibility and manufacturing costs.
Kytopen will utilise the seed capital to galvanise Flowfect’s ongoing development with a view to facilitating new biological discoveries and a more cost-effective approach to producing cell therapies.
Flowfect’s co-inventors are Paulo Garcia, a former research scientist at MIT, Cullen Buie, assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Rameech McCormack, a master’s graduate from the same department.
Kytopen was among the seven businesses to receive a share of The Engine Fund’s inaugural tranche of funding in 2017.
The fund, backed by MIT together with a slate of VC funds and family-operated offices, backs early-stage companies with a focus on “tough-tech” applications across sectors including biotech, robotics and materials.
Katie Rae, chief executive and managing partner of The Engine, said: “In the short time since The Engine’s first investment, Kytopen has made significant progress in developing a platform that is demonstrably faster, more efficient and more scalable than traditional methods.
“We are excited to invest again in Kytopen and help accelerate their path to market as they aim to transform the cell and gene therapy industry by dramatically improving the efficiency of cell engineering.”