DNA Nanobots – a leader in the design and delivery of DNA nanoparticles engineered for targeted therapeutics – announced that it has closed its pre-seed funding round. The funding round enables DNA Nanobots to launch its BioPharma Partner Program to streamline its end-to-end custom biopharma solutions from design to development for preclinical and animal studies for improved delivery of a wide range of therapeutics.
These include small molecules, peptides, antibodies, nucleic acids, and immunotherapies. The amount and names of the experienced biotech angel investors were not disclosed.
Common therapeutic delivery strategies employ technologies like lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), or viral vectors. These each have major limitations as LNPs can deliver large payloads but are challenging to orient the tissue-targeting antibodies and are non-uniform in composition. And the ADCs are limited by the payload.
DNA Nanobots has been developing its therapeutic pipeline while partnering with BioPharmaceutical companies on therapeutic candidate delivery, optimizing performance and tissue targeting. And the company has several current partner projects making substantial steps towards clinical application, reporting excellent in vivo mouse study results and pharmacological profiles. To facilitate these partnerships, DNA Nanobots licensed a portfolio of DNA nanostructure (DNA origami) technologies from Ohio State University and maintains an active collaboration with OSU Professor and DNA Nanobots co-founder Carlos Castro, Ph.D. The pre-seed investment enabled hiring senior scientists from OSU and full laboratory setup.
KEY QUOTES:
“Most therapeutics fail in clinical trials. Often because of insufficient payload into targets such as cancer cells, or off-target side effects resulting from delivery to the wrong tissues. DNA Nanobots provides design and development solutions customized around our Nanobots to target greater amounts of therapeutic molecules to only the intended cells – which enables our partners to develop better treatments.”
— CEO and co-founder Jeff Spitzner, Ph.D.
“Viral vectors have limited targeting capabilities, have uniformity and immunogenicity issues, and are very expensive. We developed our DNA Nanobots as highly programmable, tightly folded DNA to which we can attach precise numbers and locations of antibodies and concentrated therapeutic payloads of diverse molecules while maintaining particle uniformity.”
— DNA Nanobots’ CSO and co-founder Christopher Lucas, Ph.D.
