MRL Ventures Fund and Roche Fund have taken part in the intracellular drug developer's series A, which is commercialising research by Prof Dehua Pei at OSU.
Entrada Therapeutics, a US-based drug delivery platform developer based on reseach at Ohio State University (OSU), raised $59m in a series A round co-led by VC firm 5AM Ventures and healthcare investment firm MPM Capital on Tuesday.
Pharmaceutical firms Merck & Co and Roche participated in the round through respective corporate venturing units Roche Fund and MRL Ventures Fund, while Agent Capital also contributed funding.
Founded in 2016, Entrada has developed intracellular technology intended to help medicines access both small and large cells in order to treat genetic diseases.
The company’s lead program targets mutations that cause cells to reduce the amount of energy they produce. Entrada is based on research by chief scientific adviser and co-founder Dehua Pei, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at OSU.
The series A cash will fund the progress of the program into human clinical trials and expand Entrada’s drug pipeline.
Entrada was incubated in 5AM Ventures’ 4:59 Initiative and had previously raised an undisclosed amount of seed capital from 5AM, Roche Venture Fund and MRL Ventures Fund.
Dipal Doshi, president and CEO of Entrada, said: “With this financing, Entrada is well-positioned to advance multiple programs through the application of our proprietary intracellular biologics platform. Entrada has an opportunity to create the next generation of therapeutics for previously undruggable intracellular targets.”
Anja Harmeier, an investment director at Roche Venture Fund, is on the company’s board of directors, as is MRL Ventures partner Christine Brennan.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.
