HC Bioscience Announces Extension of Series A Financing to $40 Million

Rare Daily Staff

HC Bioscience, a drug discovery and development company focused on first-in-class tRNA-based therapeutics targeting protein dysfunction in genetically defined diseases, said it completed a $16 million extension to its series A funding round, brining the total raised to $40 million to advance its platform technologies.

Taiho Ventures and Panacea Venture joined existing investors, ARCH Venture Partners, Takeda Ventures and 8VC in the extension financing.

“The additional support will allow us to expand our pipeline more rapidly and extend our runway,” “said Leslie Williams, co-founder, directo,r and CEO of HC Bioscience. “We are excited to advance our lead drug candidates in cancer and genetic disease by delivering tRNA both locally and systemically.”   

HC Bio is advancing two complementary platforms. One is directed at restoring protein function when “nonsense mutations,” or premature termination codons, cause protein dysfunction, a problem responsible for 10 to 15 percent of all human disease. This platform, called PTCX (“Patch”), employs tRNA that suppresses such errors in the genetic code to allow the proper full-length protein to be produced.

The company is simultaneously developing a second tRNA-based platform called SWTX (“Switch”) to target diseases caused by missense mutations. This technology is designed to correct for such mutations in proteins that cause disease.

HC Bio says it is creating engineered tRNAs with the power to overcome disease-causing issues in the genetic code as proteins are made. The precision protein editing therapies target genetically defined diseases including cancer, with a single tRNA therapy having the potential to treat many diseases, regardless of the gene or location of the mutation.

Photo: Leslie Williams, co-founder, director, and CEO of HC Bioscience