UK biotech company Transine Therapeutics, which is developing a novel class of therapeutic RNAs, has successfully raised £4.6M ($5.8M) in additional seed funding.
The financing was led by new investor Epidarex Capital with participation from existing investor the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF).
Transine said the additional funds will enable it to further develop its SINEUP platform and accelerate development of its product portfolio, building on recent advances with its lead programs in central nervous system and ophthalmology, with in vivo data expected this year.
Jan Thirkettle, CEO of Transine, said: “Together with our successful seed round announced in June last year we have raised a total of £13.7m ($17.3M) in seed funding, putting us in a strong position to rapidly progress our pipeline of novel mRNA-targeted therapeutics and further develop our platform.
“We have three active programs and are continuing to assess opportunities to further leverage our unique SINEUP platform, which we believe has broad utility across a range of diseases with significant unmet needs.”
mRNA technology
The company is focussed on building a novel pipeline of products that bind mRNA to enhance translation of targeted proteins. It said this has “the potential for a safe and effective mechanism for upregulating protein expression with a superior level of control and specificity. Moreover, this approach may be applied across a wide range of disease applications offering multiple partnering options.”
Christian Jung, partner at DDF and chairman of Transine’s Board, welcomed Epidarex and said, “We strongly believe that Transine can be a game-changer in the way neurodegenerative and other diseases are being treated and that the SINEUP platform enables entirely novel therapeutic approaches that cannot be pursued with currently available technologies.”
Messenger RNA (mRNA) technology reached the mainstream with the COVID-19 pandemic, and many other companies have become involved.
Examples include German firm Ethris, which is riding the mRNA wave by developing inhalable mRNA therapies for respiratory diseases, and Translate Bio, which develops mRNA therapies for a range of conditions, including respiratory, liver, and infectious diseases.
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