Morningside joins round for China's Epigenic Therapeutics
Morningside Venture Capital has teamed up with Kingray Capital, Trinity Innovation Fund, TigerYeah Capital, and FountainBridge Capital to provide USD 20m in angel and pre-Series A funding for Epigenic Therapeutics, a China-based gene editing specialist.
Founded last year, the target company focuses on epigenetic modification, which is a natural and heritable gene regulation mechanism that doesn't alter the body's underlying DNA. The goal is to harness this regulation pathway to deliver medicines to cells and tissues precisely and efficiently.
Epigenic Therapeutics employs its own artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to identify Cas9, an enzyme that recognises strands of DNA that are complementary to specific CRISPR sequences. CRISPR refers to families of DNA sequences comprising fragments of earlier viruses. They can be used to detect and destroy similar subsequent infections.
The ability of epigenetic modification to act without changing the sequence of DNA reduces the risk of DNA cleavage present in other technologies, which can lead to reduced effectiveness and patient compliance issues.
According to a statement, Epigenic Therapeutics has demonstrated that its technology, when combined with a lipid nanoparticle medicine delivery system, can deliver medicine ex vivo and in vivo for models that treat metabolic conditions like heart disease and stroke, eye disorders, neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's, and rare diseases.
"Epigenetic editing is an emerging and highly differentiated gene editing technology. Along with our scientific co-founders and advisers, we are able to expand our understanding of precise regulation of the epigenetic genome and unlock its potential as medicine for many diseases," said Bob Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Epigenic Therapeutics.
The new capital will be used to validate advances of the company's epigenetic editing technology in non-human primates, expand the team and internal capabilities, and support early-stage clinical investigations.
Morningside Venture Capital is a global life sciences and healthcare investor under Morningside Group, the family office of the Chan family, founders of Hong Kong property developer Hang Lung Group. Its China-focused technology, media, and telecom (TMT) investment unit went independent in 2007 and completed the separation by rebranding as 5Y Capital in 2020.
Kingray is a generalist venture capital investor, while Trinity Innovation Fund and TigerYear are both life sciences and biomedicine specialists. TigerYeah is an independent VC firm under China-based contract research organisation Tigermed. FountainBridge is an angel investor.
More on Greater China
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.