Transine Therapeutics Announces Final Closing of its Seed Round at £13.7m to Accelerate its Platform and Portfolio Development

Company adds £4.6m additional seed funding

Strengthens investor syndicate with Epidarex joining as a new investor

Enhances ability to leverage unique SINEUP® platform and rapidly advance product development programmes

CAMBRIDGE, England, May 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Transine Therapeutics ('Transine'), a biotechnology company developing a novel class of therapeutic RNAs based on its pioneering SINEUP® platform technology, announces that it has successfully raised £4.6 million in additional seed funding. The financing was led by new investor Epidarex Capital with participation from existing investor the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF).

These new funds will enable Transine to further exploit its unique SINEUP® platform and accelerate the development of its product portfolio, building on recent advances with its lead programmes in Central Nervous System and Ophthalmology indications with key in vivo data expected this year.

Jan Thirkettle, CEO of Transine, commented: "We are very pleased to secure this further financing and welcome Epidarex as a new investor, strengthening our syndicate of international investors. Together with our successful seed round announced in June last year we have raised a total of £13.7m in seed funding, putting us in a strong position to rapidly progress our pipeline of novel mRNA-targeted therapeutics and further develop our platform. We have three active programmes and are continuing to assess opportunities to further leverage our unique SINEUP® platform, which we believe has broad utility across a range of diseases with significant unmet needs."

Founded by Professor Piero Carninci and Professor Stefano Gustincich, pioneers in functional genomics and lncRNA, and based in Cambridge, UK, Transine has established its SINEUP® drug discovery platform and built a research team with significant expertise in RNA biology and drug development. The company is focussed on exploiting its platform to build a novel pipeline of products that bind mRNA to enhance translation of targeted proteins. This offers the potential for a safe and effective mechanism for upregulating protein expression with a superior level of control and specificity. Moreover, this approach may be applied across a wide range of disease applications offering multiple partnering options.

Mary Canning, Principal at Epidarex Capital, who has joined Transine's Board following this financing, added: "We believe Transine is uniquely positioned to tackle serious diseases that can be addressed by physiological upregulation of endogenous proteins. With its strong leadership team, rapid early progress and highly promising pre-clinical proof of concept data, we see significant optionality for the company and an exciting future ahead."

Christian Jung, Partner at DDF and Chairman of Transine's Board, added: "DDF is delighted to welcome Epidarex to the syndicate and to continue working with Transine to realise the full potential of the Company's transformational SINEUP technology platform. We strongly believe that Transine can be a game-changer in the way neurodegenerative and other diseases are being treated and that the SINEUP platform enables entirely novel therapeutic approaches that cannot be pursued with currently available technologies."

About Transine® Therapeutics

Transine Therapeutics is an RNA platform company developing a novel class of therapeutic RNAs (SINEUPs) capable of upregulating protein expression with a superior level of control and specificity across an unprecedented range of diseases and applications. Conceived to boost the expression of almost any chosen target protein by binding precisely to the mRNA that encodes it and enhancing its translation, our SINEUP® platform allows us to address diseases which, until now, have been beyond the reach of small molecules, conventional biologics or gene therapies. Our proprietary technology massively extends the druggable proteome and represents an entirely new mechanism of action, ideally suited to address currently hard-to-treat diseases. Our talented team of researchers and drug developers combines significant expertise spanning RNA biology, drug discovery and the commercialisation of new platforms, and our ambitious plans are supported by a passionate group of investors who recognise the broad potential of our platform.

For more information, please visit: www.transinetx.com

TRANSINE and SINEUP are trademarks of Transine Therapeutics Limited.

About Epidarex

Epidarex Capital is a transatlantic venture capital firm with a track record of building exceptional life science companies in emerging hubs in the US and UK. Epidarex's experienced team of early-stage investors partner with entrepreneurs and leading research institutions to transform world-class science into highly innovative products addressing major unmet needs in the global healthcare market. For more information, visit www.epidarex.com

About the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF)

The Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) is a £250m specialist venture capital fund investing in, and creating, biotech companies pursuing transformational therapeutic approaches for dementias including Alzheimer's disease. The DDF brings significant capital and domain expertise to enable talented entrepreneurs to bring therapeutics addressing one of the world's largest unmet medical needs to the clinic – ultimately aiming to generate significant returns for its investors. The DDF is enabled by its networks and influential group of investors including some leading pharmaceutical companies (Biogen, Eli Lilly and Co., GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Otsuka (Astex), Pfizer and Takeda), along with AARP, Aegon, Bill Gates, British Patient Capital, NFL Players Association, Quest Diagnostics, UnitedHealth Group, the UK Government's Department of Health and Social Care, and the charity Alzheimer's Research UK. The Fund is managed by SV Health Investors. Learn more at www.TheDDFund.com

For more information please contact:

Transine Therapeutics
Dr Jan Thirkettle, CEO
[email protected] 

MEDiSTRAVA Consulting
Sylvie Berrebi, Frazer Hall
[email protected]
T: +44 (0)20 3928 6900

SOURCE Transine Therapeutics