CytoKi Pharma is a pre-clinical biotechnology company with focus on serious diseases caused by epithelial injury having an unmet medical need. Cytoki’s lead program is an engineered long-acting IL-22 protein licensed from a major pharmaceutical company.

A correctly functioning immune system is essential for keeping us healthy in the multitude of challenges our organism encounters. Numerous medicines are based on principles that activate or deactivate key proteins in the immune system in a disease context. A key cytokine (a class of proteins released from immune cells) in securing the survival and repair after an injury is IL-22. It is the immune system’s “Survive and Recover” signal to the tissue. Our lead program is harnessing the power of IL-22, in treatment of organ injuries, through a modified IL-22 protein engineered to have optimal pharmaceutical properties.

CytoKi was founded in 2019 and received the first seed financing from Lundbeckfonden Emerge in July 2019. The company has strong focus on progressing the lead program to clinical testing with expected first human dose in late 2021. At the same time, we are maturing a small diversified portfolio of projects for epithelial injury diseases based on IL-22 biology and a highly proven technology for protein engineering. The company is driven as a capital efficient set-up with a small experienced team coordinating activities performed at selected service providers.