Strand Therapeutics has raised seed funding to develop an mRNA engineering platform based on MIT research as it looks to assemble a pipeline of oncological drug candidates.
Strand Therapeutics, a US-based RNA gene therapy developer spun out from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), closed a $6m seed round on Tuesday involving Alexandria Venture Investments, the investment arm of life science real estate trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
The round was led by venture capital fund and incubator Playground Global with participation from VC firm Anri and a group of private investors.
Founded in 2017, Strand Therapeutics is working on a synthetic biology platform through which it plans to develop drugs underpinned by engineered messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules. These molecules are more ordinarily known for carrying genetic information from human DNA ahead of protein synthesis.
The company is based on the work of MIT researchers including its scientific co-founders Ron Weiss, a professor of biological engineering focused on synthetic biology, and Darrell Irvine, professor of biological engineering and of materials science and engineering.
Strand Therapeutics claims its platform will effectively act as programming language for mRNA, facilitating flexibility in the design of mRNA-based therapies.
The seed funding will help drive Strand’s recruitment strategy and build out its underlying technology, as it looks to assemble a pipeline of drug candidates, with an initial focus on cancer immunotherapies targeting tumours resistant to existing therapies.
Chris Otey, senior vice-president for science and technology at Alexandria Venture Investments, said: “The ability of Strand’s tunable mRNA therapeutic platform to dynamically respond to its microenvironment has exciting potential for treating many devastating diseases.”
