NEW YORK – Airna emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday as a new biotechnology company developing RNA editing therapeutics, with initial plans to develop a treatment for an inherited genetic disorder.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Airna launched with $30 million in financing led by ARCH Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in life science and technology companies, and with participation from venture capital firms ND Capital, Fast Track Initiative, Novalis, and Codon Capital. Airna has research operations in Tübingen, Germany.
The company's first therapeutic program is designed to treat alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), an inherited genetic disease caused by mutations in the SERPINA1 gene.
Airna is developing its pipeline with its RNA editing platform RESTORE+, based on research conducted by two of the company's cofounders — Thorsten Stafforst, a professor at University of Tübingen in Germany, and Jin Billy Li, an associate professor at Stanford University in the US — who demonstrated the potential to modify RNA with adenosine deaminase acting on RNA (ADAR) enzymes.
"We now have the capability to precisely rewrite RNA's genetic instructions, which creates the potential to address a wide range of new targets and diseases," said Rodger Novak, who will serve as board chair of the new company, in a statement. Novak was the cofounder and former chairman and CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics.
The company will be led by President and CEO Kris Elverum, who is the former CEO of Diagon Therapeutics. Sriram Sathyanarayanan, former CSO at Codiak BioSciences, will hold the same role at Airna.