Senda Biosciences, Inc., a company that is harnessing nature to program targeted, potent, and tunable medicines, today announced the completion of a $123 million Series C financing, bringing its total funding raised to date to $266 million. Flagship Pioneering, which founded Senda, participated along with new investors, including the Samsung Life Science Fund, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Bluwave Capital, and Stage 1 Ventures. Also participating in the financing are current investors, including Alexandria Venture Investments, Longevity Vision Fund, Mayo Clinic, Partners Investment, and State of Michigan Retirement System.
“Senda is pioneering the development of comprehensively programmable medicines with the potential to reach previously inaccessible cells, tissues, and organs,” said Guillaume Pfefer, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Senda Biosciences and Partner at Flagship Pioneering. “We believe our approach could transform the lives of patients in need of novel treatments, and so we’re delighted to have attracted support from investors who recognize this potential and its significance.”
The proceeds of the financing will be used to drive further development of Senda’s proprietary programmable medicines platform and advance its first programs into clinical testing. Senda’s platform deconstructs the chemical-addressing codes of natural nanoparticles from species across all kingdoms of life that have evolved to precisely shuttle biomolecules into human cells. By cataloging these chemical-addressing codes into a large, diverse atlas, Senda is programming nanoparticles with key bioproperties, including specific cell and tissue targeting and repeatable dosing. Combining the atlas with an mRNA engine, Senda’s platform fully unlocks the potential to generate a new class of comprehensively programmed medicines. The unique properties of these medicines create new frontiers for therapeutics and vaccines with further possible applications in the gene-editing and protein-based therapy landscapes.
Dr. Pfefer continued: “The enormous therapeutic promise of information molecules, such as mRNA, siRNA, and gene editors—which enable programming within cells of interest—has yet to be realized, owing in part to an inability to program to cells of interest. Senda’s extensive body of preclinical data in small and large animals, and across a range of disease models, shows that by combining these programmed nanoparticles with information molecules, we can program within and to cells. It’s quite exciting to know that this round of funding will help accelerate our platform expansion and refinement as we move our first programs toward the clinic.”
“Senda’s unique approach of programming specifically to cells of interest could be the key to unleashing the revolutionary therapeutic potential of current and future information molecules,” said Ignacio Martinez, Chairperson of the Board, cofounder of Senda Biosciences, and General Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “We’re thrilled that this group of co-investors has joined us to propel Senda’s pursuit of life-changing medicines.”
Senda Biosciences, Inc. is committed to bringing life-changing treatments to patients by harnessing nature’s code to program human cells—both from within and from outside—for targeted, potent, and tunable medicines. Senda’s proprietary platform includes an mRNA engine and the first-ever atlas of nature-derived programmable systems at the molecular level and across all kingdoms of life—accessing the entire code provided by nature required to program cells. With this platform, Senda is developing a new class of SendRNA™ medicines for infectious, genetic, metabolic, and autoimmune diseases, as well as oncology and powering new frontiers for mRNA therapeutics and vaccines and gene-editing and protein-based therapies. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Senda was founded by Flagship Pioneering. For more information, visit sendabiosciences.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $100 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.9 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), and Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB).
