Epitome Therapeutics announced its launch with €4 million in total funding. The funding includes an oversubscribed €2 million pre-seed round and €2 million in non-dilutive grant funding.
The pre-seed round was co-led by XISTA Science Ventures and Caesar Ventures. Navec Venture Holding also participated, and additional grant support came from AWS, Austria’s federal development and financing bank, and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency.
Epitome Therapeutics is a biotechnology company advancing precision epigenome editing for programmable gene expression. The company is developing CADENCE, a next-generation epigenome editing platform designed to enable precise regulation of gene expression.
The proceeds will be used to advance Epitome’s development programs toward drug candidate nomination. The company also plans to expand the technological scope of the CADENCE platform and grow its scientific and operational team.
Founded in 2025 by Dr. Guido Gualdoni and Dr. Jamie Hackett, Epitome Therapeutics was spun out of EMBL. The company is based on research conducted at EMBL Rome and supported by intellectual property exclusively licensed from EMBL.
Epitome is focused on a therapeutic approach centered on precise gene expression control. While recent advances have shown the potential of gene silencing, the company said many diseases require restoring, increasing, or fine-tuning gene activity.
The CADENCE platform enables precise, durable, and calibrated activation of gene expression without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Through a modular architecture built around engineered epigenetic effectors, the platform is designed to tailor gene activation to specific biological contexts.
Epitome said CADENCE is intended to address limitations of existing gene activation technologies. The platform is being developed for diseases driven by dysregulated gene activity, including rare and metabolic disorders.
The company’s technology is based partly on discoveries reported in a 2024 Nature Genetics paper. Epitome aims to use this foundation to establish a new therapeutic modality for diseases where gene activity must be adjusted rather than permanently edited or silenced.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are launching Epitome Therapeutics with the support of a strong group of investors and partners. Completing an oversubscribed financing is a strong endorsement of both our team and the potential of the CADENCE platform. The new funding enables us to build the company around CADENCE and translate our science into the first development programmes. Our immediate focus is to advance the platform, expand our team, and work toward the selection of our first drug candidate.”
Dr. Guido Gualdoni, Co-Founder and CEO of Epitome Therapeutics
“Genes do not simply need to be ON or OFF – they need to be expressed at the right level. Many diseases arise when that balance is disrupted. The CADENCE platform enables precise control of gene dosage, allowing us to restore activity of specific genes to therapeutically meaningful levels. We believe this precision medicine approach represents a fundamentally new therapeutic modality to treat genetic and complex disease.”
Dr. Jamie Hackett, Co-Founder and CSO of Epitome Therapeutics
“We were impressed by the breakthrough nature of Epitome Therapeutics’ approach to epigenome editing, especially its focus on targeted upregulation, and by the team’s ambition to translate this science into therapeutically relevant programmes. We are delighted to be amongst the first to support the company as it achieves the first development milestones and as the field continues to gain momentum.”
Alexander Schwartz, Partner at XISTA Science Ventures
“With our investment in Epitome Therapeutics, we are backing an exceptional team that has rethought gene regulation. What convinced us is the rare combination of scientific depth and entrepreneurial experience around Guido and Jamie. We are delighted to support the team as an investor in their first major financing round.”
Gregor Unger, Managing Partner at Caesar Ventures
