Krystal Biotech Announces First Patient Dosed in Phase 1 Clinical Trial of Inhaled KB707 for the Treatment of Locally Advanced or Metastatic Solid Tumors of the Lung

• Received Fast Track Designations for both inhaled and intratumoral KB707

PITTSBURGH, April 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Krystal Biotech, Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: KRYS), a commercial-stage biotechnology company, announced today that the first patient was dosed in its Phase 1 clinical trial (KYANITE-1) evaluating inhaled KB707, a modified HSV-1 vector designed to deliver genes encoding both human interleukin-12 (IL-12) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) to the lung, for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors of the lung.

“Cytokine therapy holds significant potential for the treatment of solid tumors but its utility has been limited by a lack of safe and effective delivery options,” said David Chien, M.D., Senior Vice President of Clinical Development at Krystal Biotech. “Cytokine delivery via inhalation is a first-of-its-kind therapeutic approach made possible by the unique attributes of Krystal’s HSV-1-based vector platform. Together with intratumoral KB707, inhaled KB707 has the potential to significantly expand the clinical utility of cytokine therapy to treat a wide range of otherwise difficult-to-treat and standard of care refractory solid tumors. Dosing the first patient in KYANITE-1 is an exciting step toward our goal of delivering a new class of cancer immunotherapies.”

The KYANITE-1 clinical trial is an open-label, multicenter, dose escalation and expansion study to evaluate inhaled KB707 monotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumor malignancies affecting the lungs. Details of the KYANITE-1 study can be found at www.clinicaltrials.gov under NCT identifier: NCT06228326.

“Dosing the first patient in our inhaled KB707 trial is another important milestone for our oncology program and for Krystal,” said Suma Krishnan, President, Research & Development, Krystal Biotech. “KYANITE-1 is our second active clinical trial evaluating KB707 and along with KB407 and KB408, our inhaled genetic medicine candidates for the treatment of cystic fibrosis and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, respectively, KB707 is our third clinical stage drug candidate delivered via inhalation. With a deep pipeline of active clinical trials, we are looking forward to data readouts starting later in 2024, which we expect will showcase the breadth and potential of our proprietary, HSV-1 based gene delivery platform.”