Entrada Raises $116 Million to Advance Intracellular Biologics Pipeline into the Clinic

Rare Daily Staff

Entrada Therapeutics closed a $116 million series B financing to advance its oligonucleotide programs into the clinic, with an initial focus on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare muscle-wasting genetic disorder that is universally fatal.

Wellington Management led the financing with participation by Redmile Group, TCG Crossover, Greenspring Associates, Point72, Qatar Investment Authority, Moore Strategic Ventures, Goldman Sachs, CureDuchenne Ventures, and one undisclosed global investment firm. Existing investors 5AM Ventures, MPM Capital, Roche Venture Fund, MRL Ventures Fund, and Agent Capital also participated in the financing.

“This investment will allow us to advance our research and a growing pipeline of intracellular oligonucleotide, antibody and enzyme-based therapeutics which we hope will transform the lives of patients living with devastating diseases,” said Dipal Doshi, president and CEO of Entrada Therapeutics.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance Entrada’s diverse pipeline to the clinic, which includes several of Entrada’s oligonucleotide programs for the treatment of multiple neuromuscular diseases, led by Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In addition, Entrada is applying its proprietary Endosomal Escape Vehicle (EEV) platform to expand beyond neuromuscular diseases into additional therapeutic areas.

Entrada uses its EEV platform to develop intracellular biologics that it says have the potential to alter the treatment landscape for patients suffering from devastating diseases by successfully getting at disease targets inside the cell that are normally inaccessible and undruggable by large molecules and indirectly or non-specifically addressed by small molecules.

The company says its EEV platform harnesses the inherent endocytic mechanism of cells, enabling higher intracellular target engagement, lower drug concentrations, and reduced or minimal toxicity compared to alternative approaches. The EEV platform also solves a fundamental problem related to intracellular target engagement, which is independent of cellular uptake – the efficient escape from the early endosome. A very low level of early endosomal escape is one of the major hindrances that must be overcome to develop effective intracellular biologics. Without this early escape, the drug is either released from the late endosome where it has already undergone partial degradation or is processed through the lysosome and degraded.

Photo: Dipal Doshi, president and CEO of Entrada Therapeutics