Korro Bio Raises $70 Million to Advance RNA Edited Therapies

Rare Daily Staff

Korro Bio, which is developing a new class of genetic medicines based on editing RNA for both rare and highly prevalent diseases, raised $70 million in a private financing to advance its therapeutic pipeline.

The biotech joined a growing list of public life sciences companies taking advantage of private investors’ capitalizing on the depressed values of biotech stocks in the current climate.

Korro entered into a subscription agreement with certain new and existing accredited investors to issue and sell an aggregate of 1.25 million shares of its common stock in a private placement (PIPE) that is expected to result in gross proceeds of approximately $70.0 million, before deducting placement agent fees and estimated offering expenses.

The PIPE was led by funds affiliated with Deep Track Capital, with participation from Atlas Venture, Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities, NEA, Rock Springs Capital, Tri Locum Partners, and other leading healthcare investors.

Korro expects the financing along with cash on hand will provide runway to fund the completion of a phase 1/2 trial of lead therapeutic KRRO-110 in patients with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), anticipated in 2026, and progress additional liver and CNS pipeline programs into the clinic and its platform with a focus on delivery and machine learning.

Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is an inherited rare disease of the lungs and liver (~15 percent of cases) characterized by low levels of AAT protein, a neutrophil elastase inhibitor, causing progressive deterioration of the tissue.

KRRO-110 is a proprietary RNA editing oligonucleotide delivered to liver cells using clinically validated LNP technology licensed from Genevant. KRRO-110 is designed to co-opt an endogenous enzyme Adenosine Deaminase Acting on RNA (ADAR) to repair a pathogenic single nucleotide variant on RNA and restore production of normal A1AT.