Cabaletta Bio Raises $100 Million to Advance Cell Therapy Pipeline for Autoimmune Diseases

Rare Daily Staff

Cabaletta Bio, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and launching the first curative targeted cell therapies for patients with autoimmune diseases, raised $100 million in an underwritten public offering of its common stock.

The company priced 8.3 million shares of its common stock at $12 a share, which included the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase an additional 1.1 million shares, at the public offering price. The gross proceeds raised in the offering, before underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated expenses of the offering, were approximately $100 million.

Cabaletta Bio discovers and develops engineered T cell therapies that have the potential to provide a deep and durable treatment for patients with autoimmune diseases. Its CABA platform encompasses two strategies: the CARTA (chimeric antigen receptor T cells for autoimmunity) strategy, with CABA-201, a 4-1BB-containing fully human CD19-CAR T, as the lead product candidate being evaluated in systemic lupus erythematosus and myositis, and the CAART (chimeric autoantibody receptor T cells) strategy, with multiple clinical-stage candidates, including DSG3-CAART for mucosal pemphigus vulgaris and MuSK-CAART for MuSK myasthenia gravis, both rare diseases.

Chimeric autoantibody receptor (CAAR) T cells are designed to selectively bind and eliminate only disease-causing B cells, while sparing the normal B cells that are essential for human health.

Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a blistering disease that is characterized by the loss of adhesion between cells of the skin or mucous membranes. PV is caused by the production of autoantibodies that disrupt structural proteins within the skin and/or mucosa that connect with other proteins to enable the skin and/or mucosal cells to connect with each other. The autoantibodies can target desmoglein 3 (DSG3) and/or desmoglein 1 (DSG1), which are primarily expressed in the mucosal membranes and skin, respectively. Mucosal pemphigus vulgaris (mPV) is characterized by autoantibodies against DSG3 only.

Cabaletta Bio’s DSG3-CAART is designed to target the cause of mPV, B cells that express pathogenic autoantibodies directed against the DSG3 protein, while preserving normal B cell immune function.