GenEdit Raises $26 Million to Support Nanoparticle Delivery Platform for Genetic Medicines

GenEdit, a company with a developing curative therapies through targeted in vivo delivery of genetic medicines, raised $26 million in a series A financing.

Photo: Kunwoo Lee, GenEdit CEO and Co-founder

New investors Eli Lilly, KTB Network, Company K Partners, Korea Investment Partners, DAYLI Partners, KB Investment, IMM Investment, and TIMEFOLIO Asset Management, joined existing investors DCVC Bio, SK Holdings, Bow Capital, and Sequoia Capital in the financing.

The funding will support the further development of GenEdit’s NanoGalaxy platform of non-viral, non-lipid polymer nanoparticles, and the selection for clinical development of therapeutic candidates targeting diseases of the nervous system. Besides developing its own internal pipeline the company plans to deliver therapeutic payloads for partners’ programs.

GenEdit also disclosed new in vivo data demonstrating tissue-selective delivery after intravenous or intrathecal administration of its polymer nanoparticles. Additional data show the polymer nanoparticles can be dosed multiple times with functional activity of the payload maintained in each subsequent dose.

GenEdit CEO and Co-founder Kunwoo Lee will present this data at TIDES 2021.

“With this financing, we are exploring the universe of opportunities within GenEdit’s NanoGalaxy platform to treat serious diseases without effective treatment options,” said Lee. “The data presented today indicates we can overcome the historic challenges in the field of gene therapy and establishes the feasibility of using GenEdit’s polymer nanoparticles to deliver genetic medicines to a variety of tissues, including the CNS, with the potential for delivering a therapeutic effect.”

The NanoGalaxy platform includes thousands of chemically distinct polymers, each with unique properties making them amenable to targeting different tissues and cell types and carrying diverse genetic medicine payloads. These polymer nanoparticles can deliver DNA, RNA, or CRISPR ribonucleoprotein, depending on the requirement to add, delete, edit, or silence a gene for therapeutic effect.

“With its NanoGalaxy platform, the GenEdit team has achieved impressive delivery to cells of the central nervous system and has a tunable platform to target genetic medicines to different tissue types,” said Andrew Adams, vice president of New Therapeutic Modalities at Eli Lilly and GenEdit Board observer. “Solving the delivery problem is what will truly launch genetic medicines to being an essential therapeutic modality for a wide range of diseases.”

Author: Rare Daily Staff