Replicate Bioscience Secures $40 Million in Series A to Advance RNA Therapeutics
On September 8th, San Diego-based Replicate Bioscience Inc. announced securing $40 million in Series A from the leading life sciences venture capital firm ATP (Apple Tree Partners) to advance novel self-replicating RNA (sRNA) programs into clinical development.
Founded in February 2020, Replicate Bioscience uses its proprietary synthetic immune lethality approach and applies advanced srRNA technology to prevent drug resistance in cancers.
Michael Ehlers, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of ATP, and a venture partner at the firm strongly feels ATP is investing in Replicate envisioning the company’s technology as a quantum leap in RNA therapeutics. He said, “Next-generation srRNA agents are taking RNA therapeutics into many more areas of disease treatment, and what Replicate is doing to define and expand this field is completely new and exciting”.
Founded in 1999, ATP is a leader in life sciences venture capital, with $2.65 billion in committed capital and offices in New York, London, San Francisco, and Cambridge, MA. ATP creates companies starting at various stages, from pre-IP ideas to asset spinouts, investing in them from seed stage through IPO and beyond. The core of ATP’s strategy is to provide flexible capital and access to a world-class team of venture partners and EIRs, to build sustainable, research-driven enterprises that improve human lives.
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Emerging Player in Developing a Next-In-Class srRNA Platform
Replicate co-founders Nathaniel Wang and Andy Geall previously collaborated on srRNA technologies at Synthetic Genomics and at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, where Wang and Geall led projects to develop RNA vaccines for pandemic response (several years before COVID-19) and cancer immunotherapy, respectively.
They joined hands with a former colleague, Herbert Kim Lyerly, M.D., and Zachary Hartman, Ph.D., both professors of cancer research and immunology at Duke University, to develop a srRNA application capable of preventing or removing drug-resistant cancer mutations—a tactic they dubbed “synthetic immune lethality.” Replicate exclusively licensed and spun this technology out of Duke, building multiple pipeline candidates using this approach.
Self-replicating RNAs (srRNAs) work by copying themselves inside the body and instructing the cells to keep making therapeutic proteins. Replicate harnesses the body’s natural protein-making power and uses synthetic biology to craft customized vehicles from the srRNA that are suited to deliver different kinds of therapeutic proteins.
The custom srRNAs offer unique advantages compared to other RNA or srRNA therapeutic approaches such as lower dosing levels by several orders of magnitude, increased duration of therapeutic effect, and selectively programmed ability to either activate or evade the immune system.
Replicate Bioscience is developing synthetic immune lethality srRNAs for concurrent administration with targeted therapies in solid tumors. The scientists at Replicate are also developing srRNA injections for sustained therapeutic protein expression to treat autoimmune and inflammatory disorders and other conditions.
Nathaniel Wang, Ph.D., Replicate Bioscience Chief Executive Officer, believes Replicate’s srRNA will bring about the next big breakthroughs in RNA therapeutics and revolutionize the practice of medicine to improve and save lives.
Replicate currently has four pipeline programs, all in the discovery or preclinical phase. These include RBI-1000, an endocrine therapy resistance for breast cancer; RBI-2000, immunotherapy resistance for solid tumors; RBI-3000, targeted therapy resistance for lung cancer; and RBI-8000, inflammasome for inflammatory disease and autoimmune disorders. The first therapy is expected to begin clinical trials in the second half of 2022.
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