Dyne Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based new biotechnology company pioneering targeted therapies for patients with serious muscle diseases, raised $50m in Series A funding.
Atlas Venture, which founded seeded and incubated the company, was joined by Forbion and MPM Capital in the Series A round.
Led by Romesh Subramanian, Ph.D., president and CEO, Dyne is developing medicines based on its proprietary product platform, which delivers nucleic acids and other molecules to skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle with precision.
The company’s lead programs are designed to knock down gene expression for the treatment of rare, monogenic neuromuscular diseases. It is also developing therapeutics for patients with cardiac and smooth muscle diseases.
Dyne will initially focus on myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), a rare, inherited disorder that causes muscle weakness and other life-limiting complications. There are currently no disease-modifying treatments for DM1, which affects an estimated 40,000 people in the U.S.
The company’s management team also includes:
Catherine Stehman-Breen, M.D., chief medical officer,
Bruce Wentworth, Ph.D., Senior Scientific Advisor,
Mo Qatanani, Ph.D., vice president of discovery and translational research,
Jonathan McNeill, M.D., vice president of business development.
The scientific advisory board includes:
– Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D.,
– Louis Kunkel, Ph.D.,
– Charles Thornton, M.D.,
– Sudhir Agrawal, D.Phil.,
Dyne’s board of directors includes:
– Jason Rhodes, a partner at Atlas Venture and executive chairman of Dyne’s board of directors
– Ed Hurwitz, managing director at MPM Capital,
– Dirk Kersten, general partner at Forbion, and
– Romesh Subramanian.
FinSMEs
03/04/2019