NEW YORK – Haya Therapeutics on Thursday said it has raised $65 million in a Series A funding round, which it will put toward accelerating development of its therapeutic pipeline, including its long noncoding RNA-targeting (lncRNA) candidate HTX-001 for heart failure.
Sofinnova Partners and Earlybird Venture Capital led the Series A round. Other investors included Athos, +ND Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, LifeLink Ventures, and Eli Lilly, with which Haya recently struck a partnership to identify novel regulatory RNA-based drug targets for obesity and metabolic disorders. Haya's existing investors Apollo Health Ventures, Broadview Ventures affiliate Longview Ventures, 4See Ventures, Bernina Bioinvest, and Schroders Capital also provided support in the Series A round.
"This is a defining moment for Haya, as we are advancing our lead program into the clinic," Haya Cofounder and CEO Samir Ounzain said in a statement.
Haya develops RNA-guided therapeutics that target the regulatory genome, which is composed of genes that regulate expression of other genes, but don't encode proteins themselves. By targeting these lncRNAs, the Lausanne, Switzerland-based biotech aims to "reprogram" pathological cell states to treat various conditions.
Haya will use the new funds to initiate clinical trials of HTX-001 in heart failure, initially in non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, as well as to strengthen and use its platform capabilities to expand its pipeline of disease-modifying therapies in multiple disease settings, including pulmonary fibrosis, obesity, and age-related common and chronic diseases.
"Haya's platform unlocks the dark genome's therapeutic potential by targeting disease-driving cell states via long noncoding RNAs," Henrijette Richter, managing partner at Sofinnova Partners, said in a statement. "This novel approach opens a new frontier in precision medicine, moving beyond traditional target classes to address disease at its epigenetic and cellular roots."