Nascent cardiovascular biotech Kardigan is continuing its bumper year with a pulse-quickening $254 million series B fundraising round, bringing the company’s total financing to more than half a billion dollars to support a tapestry of late-stage clinical assets.
Existing investors Arch Venture Partners and Sequoia Heritage were joined in the round by newcomers Fidelity Management & Research Company and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Investment, the biotech explained in an Oct. 14 release.
Kardigan launched in January with a hearty $300 million and a clutch of then-undisclosed assets in hand. Last month, the company revealed three of these drugs and has since shared phase 2b data for one of them—danicamtiv—at the Heart Failure Society of America’s annual conference.
Danicamtiv is a cardiac myosin activator licensed from Bristol Myers Squibb and originally discovered by MyoKardia, another cardio-focused biotech that was acquired by BMS in 2020 for $13 billion. Kardigan was founded by a team of former MyoKardia execs, including co-founder, CEO and chair Tassos Gianakakos, who previously led MyoKardia for seven years.
Kardigan is developing danicamtiv for certain forms of dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart’s chambers enlarge, making blood pumping difficult.
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Kardigan’s other two disclosed assets are tonlamarsen, an acute severe hypertension candidate licensed from Ionis Pharmaceuticals; and ataciguat, a guanylate cyclase activator from Sanofi and the Mayo Clinic that Kardigan is pursuing for calcific aortic valve stenosis.
All three therapies are meant to address the root causes of diseases that currently have no treatment, Kardigan said in the release, with multiple readouts expected next year.
Kardigan’s quick tempo this year is intentional, the company said in the Oct. 14 release, “with the goal of delivering multiple medicines at a pace not previously seen in cardiovascular health.”
“The support of our new and existing investors affirms the strength of Kardigan’s differentiated scientific strategy and bold vision to make cardiovascular disease preventable, curable and no longer the leading cause of death in the world,” Gianakakos said in the release.
“With cardiac intelligence, Kardigan is advancing an unparalleled understanding of the heart, redefining the model for therapeutic innovation—one designed to address cardiovascular diseases at their source rather than just manage symptoms,” the CEO added.
Gianakakos’ use of the phrase “cardiac intelligence” was likely a reference to the other company he leads, Prolaio, a cardiovascular data collection and analysis platform Kardigan acquired in March.
At the time, Kardigan co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Jay Edelberg, M.D., Ph.D., said that together the two companies were “poised to establish a new and unrivaled understanding of heart health.”
