Epigenic Therapeutics Announces $32 Million in Series A Funding to Bring Breakthrough Epigenome Medicine to Clinical Development

SHANGHAI, Aug. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Epigenic Therapeutics, a leading biotechnology company dedicated to developing next-generation gene modulation therapy utilizing epigenome regulation to treat prevalent diseases, today announced that it has raised $32 million in Series A round of financing co-led by Qiming Venture Partners and OrbiMed, with participation from existing investor Morningside Venture Capital. This round of financing will support the preclinical development and early clinical validation of two leading programs, discovery of future pipelines, expansion of the leadership team, and continued investments in the company's core technology platforms.

Epigenic's EPIREG™ technology offers a compelling alternative to the traditional cleavage-dependent gene editing tools by which altering the DNA sequence would raise safety concerns. By precisely modulating gene expression(s) at epigenetic levels, EPIREG™ is expected to achieve potent and durable silencing of target gene(s) to provide revolutionary and novel solutions to patients with chronic diseases.

"In two years since the inception, Epigenic has made significant progress towards transforming cutting-edge science into life-saving epigenome medicines. Now we have developed targeted therapeutic strategies." said Bob Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Epigenic Therapeutics. "We are honored and grateful to have the support from top-tier global investors as we continue our mission to pioneer innovations in epigenome medicines to be ultimately implemented in patient care."

"Gene therapy is one of the most exciting areas of biotechnology in recent years." said Dr. Kan Chen, Partner of Qiming Venture Partners. "Qiming has been closely following the latest technology development and breakthroughs, and how they can be applied to meet unmet medical needs of more patients. Epigenic Therapeutics leverages globally leading epigenetic modulation technology to develop innovative therapies for various chronic diseases. With a passionate and experienced team, the company has been steadily and efficiently moving forward with the development of technology platforms and pipelines. We look forward to Epigenic Therapeutics bringing hope and treatments to global patients soon."

"Epigenetic modulations have shown remarkably superior efficiency, durability, as well as safety profile compared to other genetic tools. Epigenetic Therapeutics is a leader in this space and has leveraged the unique advantage of the platform to produce potentially best-in-disease product profile." said Steven Wang, Partner of OrbiMed Asia Partners. "We are impressed with the preclinical data and the execution capability of the Epigenic Therapeutics leadership team. We look forward to supporting the company to bring the two development candidates to clinic."

About EPIREG™ Platform

Epigenic Therapeutics' proprietary technology platform EPIREG™ employs its own artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to explore and obtain an optimized CRISPR-Cas component to regulate target gene(s) or govern the expression of one or multiple gene(s) at once without changing the sequence of the DNA. Among peer technologies, our platform is capable to overcome the potential risk rising from DNA cleavage including but not limited to off-target effect, short half-life and challenging patient compliance issues. Combining a proprietary lipid nanoparticle (LNP) medicine delivery system, our platform has been proven to precisely and efficiently deliver medicine to target cells and tissues ex vivo and in vivo in metabolic, cardiovascular, viral hepatitis, ocular and rare disease models.

About Epigenic Therapeutics

Epigenic Therapeutics is a frontier biotechnology company dedicated to developing next generation gene editing therapy utilizing regulation of epigenetic genome for a variety of diseases. Founded in 2021 by leading scientists focused on discovering gene editing technologies and developing gene editing therapies, the company has multiple product candidates in the pipeline, including treatment for metabolic, cardiovascular, viral hepatitis, ocular and rare diseases. For more information, visit www.epigenictx.com

About Qiming Venture Partners

Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners is a leading China venture capital firm with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Hong Kong, Seattle, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.5 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages. Since our debut, we have backed over 530 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 200 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange, or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or by other means. There are also over 70 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn status. For more, please visit www.qimingvc.com

About OrbiMed

OrbiMed is a leading global healthcare investment firm, with $17 billion in assets under management across a range of private equity funds, public equity funds, and private credit/royalty funds. It invests across the healthcare industry, from start-ups to large multinational corporations. OrbiMed's team of over 100 scientific, medical, investment, and other professionals are based in key markets around the world. For more information on OrbiMed please visit www.orbimed.com

About Morningside Venture Capital

Morningside Ventures was founded in 1986 by the Chan Family of Hong Kong. Since its establishment, Morningside has been focusing on trends of the forefront life science and healthcare industries over the world, spreading its business scope and investment footprint over North America, Europe, and Greater China. Morningside comprises a group of investment professionals who are entrepreneurial, have deep industry knowledge and profound experience in venture capital management. For more information, please visit http://www.morningside.com

SOURCE Epigenic Therapeutics