NEW YORK – EnPlusOne Biosciences, a Harvard University biotech spinout aiming to enzymatically synthesize RNA oligonucleotides, formally launched on Friday with $12 million in seed financing.
This round was led by Northpond Ventures, with additional investments from Breakout Ventures, Coatue, and angel investors.
EnPlusOne said the funding will be used to support the continued development and scaling of its proprietary ezRNA synthesis platform.
Cofounded by Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church, EnPlusOne said its RNA synthesis technology was advanced by technical cofounders Daniel Wiegand and Jonathan Rittichier at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering during the last six years. In the past two years, Wiegand and Rittichier also received funding from the Northpond Labs Alliance, a collaboration between the Wyss Institute and Northpond Ventures' R&D affiliate Northpond Labs.
EnPlusOne said it plans to synthesize and supply oligonucleotides greater than 100 nucleotides in length and design its platform to enable large-scale manufacturing in the near future. Additionally, the company expects to collaborate with industry partners to provide "novel modifications" of nucleotides.
“We know that the chemical synthesis approaches cannot keep pace with RNA innovation,” Wiegand said in a statement. "Our platform represents a new way of addressing this need utilizing next-generation technology for the scaled production of high-quality RNA oligonucleotides."