Kanvas Biosciences Receives New Funding to Develop First-In-Category Microbiome Therapeutic for Improving Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

The oral product, funded by Gates Foundation, will treat and prevent environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) in pregnant persons across Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kanvas Biosciences, a full-stack spatial biology and microbial therapeutics company, today announced a new investment from Gates Foundation. Through this investment, Kanvas will develop the world’s first fully synthetic microbiome replacement product designed to treat and prevent maternal environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a major contributor to maternal undernutrition, low infant birthweight and heightened neonatal health risk. Using global metagenomic datasets and samples for microbial strain identification and isolation, Kanvas will leverage its proprietary spatial microbiome imaging platform to inform the design of defined, complex multi-strain consortia, which will be translated into scalable, reproducible products via the company’s vertically integrated, anaerobic manufacturing platform. These manufacturing capabilities, coupled with Kanvas’ proprietary AI drug discovery models that can be used to accelerate the development of live biotherapeutic products, will support the development of a safe, effective and affordable microbiome therapeutic for clinical evaluation in relevant geographical contexts.

EED is an intestinal condition widely observed across low-and-middle income settings with poor sanitation. Affecting approximately 150 million children worldwide, EED causes intestinal inflammation, gut lining damage and leaky gut barriers, which leads to poor nutrient absorption, stunted growth, impaired immune responses and intergenerational consequences for maternal and infant health. EED is a major contributor to child morbidity and long-term developmental deficits, and maternal EED is directly linked to diminished infant health outcomes.

“It’s an honor to produce a solution for EED, because this condition is the root cause of many individuals’ inability to absorb key nutrients in food, and ultimately impacts their ability to live long, healthy lives,” said Matthew Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Kanvas Biosciences. “By treating expectant mothers with our therapeutic, we have an opportunity to improve the microbiomes of both mothers and children at the same time. To provide treatment in such a large and impactful way is a rarity in medicine, and a privilege we don’t take lightly.”

Kanvas’ microbiome therapeutic will deliver:

• Unmatched bacterial richness, by using complex consortia with many unique members that can restore microbiome health
• Strains native to impacted areas, including the Foundation’s priority geographies, to most effectively treat local individuals’ microbiomes
• Design and manufacturing efficiency, by leveraging Kanvas’ extensive, in-house data on host-microbiome interactions and corresponding AI models that can identify which strains prefer to grow together during manufacturing
• Affordability and stability, with a cost structure designed for affordability at scale, enabled by efficient manufacturing and a stable formulation suitable for deployment in low-resource settings and a range of climatic conditions

Kanvas has previously demonstrated the achievement of key steps in the clinical manufacturing of its existing microbiome drug candidates, including KAN-001, which shows significant potential to improve outcomes for cancer patients who have or will undergo therapy with immune check­point inhibitors (ICIs), and KAN-004, which targets ICI-induced colitis and may allow cancer patients to stay on ICI therapy longer with improved safety and response rates.

About Kanvas Biosciences
Kanvas Biosciences is a spatial biology company building the world’s first microbiome drug screening, discovery and manufacturing platform to accelerate the development of next generation live biotherapeutics. With an unparalleled ability to spatially map the microbiome and profile host gene expression, and manufacture complex consortia containing hundreds of members that can restore microbiome health, the company is uniquely positioned to develop novel therapeutics that can significantly improve the lives of all patients living with microbiome-associated diseases. Kanvas Biosciences' technology was initially developed at Cornell University and exclusively licensed. The company's notable investors include DCVC, Lions Capital LLC, Gates Foundation, ATHOS KG, FemHealth Ventures, Germin8, Ki Tua Fund, Pangaea Ventures, Triple Impact Capital and Uncommon Denominator. Kanvas Biosciences is headquartered in Princeton, NJ. For more information, visit www.kanvasbio.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.