Epigenic Therapeutics, a leading biotechnology company dedicated to developing next-generation gene modulation therapy utilizing epigenome regulation to treat prevalent diseases, today announced that it has raised $32 million in Series A round of financing co-led by Qiming Venture Partners. This round of financing will support the preclinical development and early clinical validation of two leading programs, discovery of future pipelines, expansion of the leadership team, and continued investments in the company's core technology platforms.
Epigenic's EPIREG™ technology offers a compelling alternative to the traditional cleavage-dependent gene editing tools by which altering the DNA sequence would raise safety concerns. By precisely modulating gene expression(s) at epigenetic levels, EPIREG™ is expected to achieve potent and durable silencing of target gene(s) to provide revolutionary and novel solutions to patients with chronic diseases.
Epigenic Therapeutics' proprietary technology platform EPIREG™ employs its own artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to explore and obtain an optimized CRISPR-Cas component to regulate target gene(s) or govern the expression of one or multiple gene(s) at once without changing the sequence of the DNA. Among peer technologies, Epigenic Therapeutics' platform is capable to overcome the potential risk rising from DNA cleavage including but not limited to off-target effect, short half-life and challenging patient compliance issues. Combining a proprietary lipid nanoparticle (LNP) medicine delivery system, Epigenic Therapeutics' platform has been proven to precisely and efficiently deliver medicine to target cells and tissues ex vivo and in vivo in metabolic, cardiovascular, viral hepatitis, ocular and rare disease models.
"In two years since the inception, Epigenic has made significant progress towards transforming cutting-edge science into life-saving epigenome medicines. Now we have developed targeted therapeutic strategies." said Bob Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Epigenic Therapeutics. "We are honored and grateful to have the support from top-tier global investors as we continue our mission to pioneer innovations in epigenome medicines to be ultimately implemented in patient care."
"Gene therapy is one of the most exciting areas of biotechnology in recent years." said Dr. Kan Chen, Partner of Qiming Venture Partners. "Qiming has been closely following the latest technology development and breakthroughs, and how they can be applied to meet unmet medical needs of more patients. Epigenic Therapeutics leverages globally leading epigenetic modulation technology to develop innovative therapies for various chronic diseases. With a passionate and experienced team, the company has been steadily and efficiently moving forward with the development of technology platforms and pipelines. We look forward to Epigenic Therapeutics bringing hope and treatments to global patients soon."
This financing round is co-led by Qiming Venture Partners and OrbiMed, with participation from existing investor Morningside Venture Capital.
