Vesigen Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology company advancing therapies directed to intracellular targets using a fusogenic extracellular vesicle delivery technology, raised USD28.5M in Series A financing.
The round was led by Leaps by Bayer and Morningside Ventures, which were joined by Linden Lake Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. With the financing, Vesigen has named Gerald Chan of Morningside Ventures as Chairman, while Stephen Bruso of Morningside Ventures and Juergen Eckhardt and Jak Knowles of Leaps by Bayer have been named to its Board of Directors.
The company will use the capital to build out the ARMMs platform as well as to advance numerous therapeutic agents into preclinical and clinical development.
Led by Robert Millman Co-Founder and CEO Vesigen Therapeutics aims to overcome the hurdle of targeted intracellular drug delivery of next-generation therapeutics, such as CRISPR-cas9, RNA molecules and other therapeutic proteins, by using a proprietary delivery technology.
The patented technology, called ARMMs (ARRDC1 Mediated Microvesicles), enables the delivery of a wide range of payloads, including RNAs (mRNA, shRNA, ribozymes), proteins (signaling proteins, enzymes, antibody fragments), and gene-editing complexes (Cas9/gRNA) directly into the cytoplasm of target cells, expanding the universe of druggable targets.
The company’s Scientific Advisory Board will include:
- Quan Lu, PhD, Scientific Co-Founder, Vesigen Therapeutics
- Stephen Haggarty, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
- Thomas Reh, PhD, University of Washington
FinSMEs
22/07/2020