Bringing together researchers from Italy and the US, Chroma Medicine has emerged out of stealth with series A financing led by Cormorant Asset Management.
Chroma Medicine, a US-based epigenetic editing technology developer exploiting research from multiple institutions, has launched with $125m in series A financing led by hedge fund Cormorant Asset Management.
Casdin Capital, Janus Henderson Investors, Omega Funds, funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price Associates, Wellington Management, Atlas Venture, Newpath Partners and Sofinnova Partners all backed the round.
The latter three had previously provided seed capital, Chroma disclosed in its launch announcement without offering further details.
Founded in May 2020, Chroma Medicine is working on epigenetic editing technology – allowing it to turn genes on or off, or altering the expression the multiple genes at once.
The company has not disclosed specific diseases it is targeting, but the approach could have applications in a wide range of conditions. It will use the series A cash to further develop its platform and to advance a pipeline of assets.
Vic Myer was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Atlas Venture when he joined Chroma as president and chief scientific officer in October 2020. He said: “Epigenetic editing provides fundamental mechanistic advantages over other genomic medicine approaches.
“First, by mimicking cells’ existing mechanism for regulating gene expression, it enables complete control of the target without activating unpredictable DNA repair pathways.
“Second, epigenetic editing opens the possibility of pursuing targets in the genome that are difficult to access with other therapeutic approaches, offering hope to patients suffering from serious illnesses.”
Chroma builds on the work of Profs Angelo Lombardo and Luigi Naldini of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy – a joint research institute of Ospedale San Raffaele and Fondazione Telethon – who had founded epigenetic company Epsilen Bio in 2019.
Chroma subsequently purchased Epsilen Bio. Details of that deal do not appear to have been made public, although Chroma shareholder Sofinnova Partners had seeded Epislen Bio and Fierce Biotech described Lombardo and Naldini as having laid the groundwork for Chroma.
Chroma’s other scientific co-founders are University of California, San Francisco’s Luke Gilbert and Jonathan Weissman, Massachusetts General Hospital’s Keith Joung and Broad Institute’s David Liu.
The board of directors for Chroma includes chief executive Catherine Stehman-Breen, as well as Kevin Bitterman, partner at Atlas Venture; Thomas Cahill, managing partner at Newpath Partners; Bihua Chen, CEO and portfolio manager at Cormorant; and Paola Pozzi, partner at Sofinnova.
