Kinaset Therapeutics just locked in $103M for a Series B, and this one moves air with intent. Boston DNA, Medfield address, global ambition. A clinical stage company betting that asthma treatment should stay where asthma actually lives, in the lungs, not roaming the bloodstream looking for trouble.
Founded in 2020 by Robert Clarke, PhD, Roger Heerman, MBA, and Frazer Morgan, Kinaset Therapeutics feels less like a startup and more like a calculated return by people who already know how this movie usually ends. These are operators who have watched respiratory medicine plateau while patients kept coughing through “standard of care.”
The lead asset, frevecitinib, also known as KN-002, is an inhaled pan-JAK inhibitor built to hit inflammation at the source. JAK1, JAK2, JAK3, TYK2, all addressed, but only inside the lung. Broad anti-inflammatory coverage without inviting systemic side effects into the room.
Phase 1 data did not whisper. It spoke in full sentences. 117 subjects across healthy volunteers, asthma patients, and COPD. Dose-dependent PK, plasma levels staying below pharmacologically active thresholds, clean safety, and meaningful FeNO reductions even in patients with eosinophils under 300 and under 150. That detail matters because many therapies quietly look the other way there.
Asthma is massive, but severe asthma is where frustration compounds. Roughly 5.1M patients across the US, EU4, UK, and Japan, with 35 to 55% still uncontrolled on ICS and LABA. In the US alone, about 2.4M severe cases split between Type 2 and non-Type 2 inflammation. That gap is not academic. It is commercial, clinical, and human.
RA Capital Management and Forge Life Science Partners co-led the oversubscribed round, joined by EQT Life Sciences, Vivo Capital, Schroders Capital, Willett Advisors, Pictet Alternative Advisors, and Sixty Degree Capital, with Atlas Venture, 5AM Ventures, and Gimv continuing their conviction. Capital does not chase lungs unless the data can breathe.
The board expanded with Henry Stusnick, Daniela Begolo, and Peter B. Silverman, stacking investment discipline, clinical depth, and operational scar tissue where it counts. Tom King continues as Chair, and Robert Clarke stays close to the engine, exactly where a founder CEO belongs at this altitude.
The Vectura agreement is not background noise. Chemistry, formulation, and inhalation know-how woven together since day one. Delivering therapeutic lung concentrations through a single-capsule dry powder inhaler is not trivia, it is the thesis.
With IND clearance secured and a Phase 2b dose-ranging study planned, Kinaset Therapeutics is aiming at something rare in asthma. A novel inhaled anti-inflammatory option that does not ask patients to inject, escalate, or compromise. Just inhale, control inflammation, and move on with life.
