Investors clearly appreciate the song Tune Therapeutics is singing, handing over $175 million in series B funds as the biotech takes its epigenetic silencing drug into the clinic.
The funding has been earmarked to advance Tune’s pipeline, which is led by Tune-401. The startup has spent recent months securing permission to bring Tune-401 into clinical trials in both New Zealand and Hong Kong.
The epigenetic silencing drug for chronic hepatitis B (HBV) is built on Tune’s TEMPO epigenetic editing platform, which is delivered to cells in lipid nanoparticles. Rather than irreversibly altering the DNA itself by knocking out or deleting genes like other gene editing technologies do, TEMPO adjusts gene expression in a non-permanent way. It uses a peptide complex called a DNA-binding domain coupled with a small molecule called an effector.
Tune turned heads in 2023 when the company unveiled preclinical data showing Tune-401 was able to repress HBV DNA almost completely in human liver cells and infected mouse models.
As well as Tune-401, some of the series B cash will “also support the development of additional gene, cell, and regenerative therapy programs already underway at Tune, and to progress its broader mission of bringing the power and versatility of epigenetic therapies to bear on common and chronic diseases,” the biotech said in the release.
“It is deeply gratifying to have seen this platform and company evolve so far,” Tune co-founder Charles Gersbach, Ph.D., said. “Tune has already achieved a global landmark in the field, in the clinical application of epi-editing to a common and chronic disease. Thanks to the support of our investors, we anticipate the development of many more new epi-editing therapies in the years to come.”
Tune launched in 2021 with $40 million. Today’s bumper funding round was led by New Enterprise Associates, Yosemite, Regeneron Ventures and Hevolution Foundation.
“We are incredibly proud to see Tune progress successfully into the clinic,” Yosemite founder and investor Reed Jobs said in the Jan. 13 release. “The Yosemite team has been an enthusiastic backer of Tune from the beginning, as we feel that few technologies have the biological power of epigenetic medicine to transform disease outcomes for the better.”
“The range of potential applications and indications is vast and will only continue to expand,” Jobs added.