Five days ago, Verismo raised $28M from HLB Innovation and we wrote about them here.
The short version: they’re using natural killer cell wiring instead of T cell wiring to build CAR therapies, betting that KIR signaling keeps cells functional longer in solid tumors.
The bet is officially in humans now.
At the AACR 2026 plenary this week, Verismo presented first-in-human data for SynKIR-110, a mesothelin-targeting KIR-CAR T cell therapy, in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, mesothelioma, and cholangiocarcinoma.
The headlines from the presentation:
No dose-limiting toxicities.
Favorable safety profile.
Dose-dependent efficacy signals.
And improved cell persistence at higher dose levels.
That last one is kind of the whole thesis…it’s like, the entire reason they’re using KIR signaling as opposed to the normal CAR-T wiring.
Verismo pipeline
SynKIR-110 — mesothelin KIR-CAR
Ovarian, mesothelioma, cholangiocarcinoma
SynKIR-310 — CD19 KIR-CAR
Aggressive B-cell NHL
STAR-101 (SynKIR-110): first-in-human in solid tumors.
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Conventional CAR-Ts in solid tumors have a persistence problem.
Cells go in, engage the tumor, get obliterated by antigen exposure and the immunosuppressive TME, and burn themselves out.
Response rates in mesothelin-positive solid tumors with older CAR constructs have been modest, in the single digits to low double digits, and durability has been worse.
KIR signaling comes from a different branch of the immune system – the innate arm.
Verismo’s architecture uses a multi-chain signaling domain borrowed from NK cells – known for being a bit more immunologically “restrained”. You can kind of think of T cells as the meth’d up berserker and NKs as the slightly more deliberate knight.
The preclinical case was that this would give the cells more staying power.
Dose-escalation is still ongoing and no recommended Phase 2 dose has been set. No response rates were disclosed in this readout either, so it’s too early to say whether persistence translates into tumors actually shrinking.
But “no DLTs, persistence scaling with dose” is the cleanest thing a Phase 1 CAR-T can say at this stage…in solid tumors, especially.
Mesothelin-positive ovarian cancer patients have very little to hope for.
If SynKIR-110 holds up through dose-finding, Verismo goes from “interesting platform story” to “company with a real asset.”
We’ll be watching the next data drop.
