Aerska has launched with $21 million in seed funding the European biotech will use for its mission to deliver genetic medicines to the brain.
The company, which is headquartered in Dublin with research operations in London, is working on so-called “brain shuttles” to deliver antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates for neurological diseases across the blood-brain barrier.
Areska’s precision medicine strategy is initially focused on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and the biotech has earmarked some of its funds to “make targeted investments in data science capabilities” to help identify the right patients, according to an Oct. 1 release.
Aerska is headed up by Jack O’Meara, the former CEO of Ochre Biotech, another RNA-focused company. O’Meara founded his latest venture with Stuart Milstein, who was involved in developing Alnylam’s brain delivery program and currently serves as chief scientific officer of British genetic medicines biotech Orfonyx Bio.
O’Meara’s fellow Ochre vet David Coughlan will serve as Aerska’s head of early development, with the head of research position filled by Mike Perkinton, former head of discovery for AstraZeneca Neuroscience.
“Neurological diseases remain one of the greatest challenges in medicine, with limited options to alter the course of disease,” O’Meara said in the Oct. 1 release. “By integrating brain shuttles with RNA therapeutics, we aim to enable precise, durable gene silencing in the CNS.
“We’re pairing this with a strategy to match the intervention to the right patient, at the right stage of their disease,” the CEO added.
The seed funding was co-led by Age1, Backed VC and Speedinvest, with the likes of Blueyard, Lingotto, Norrsken VC, Kerna, PsyMed, Saras and Ada Ventures all investing in the new company.
Aerska is named after a Gaelic proverb related to the power of collective strength and collaboration, according to the company. The biotech’s team will likely need to draw on those attributes as it tackles the blood-brain barrier, one of the trickiest challenges of current drug development.
“Delivery across the blood-brain barrier remains the bottleneck for genetic medicines in neurology,” said Alex Brunicki, a partner at Backed VC and Aerska board member. “Aerska’s platform integrates advanced RNAi chemistry with receptor-mediated shuttling and precision medicine, positioning the company at the forefront of CNS therapeutics.”
Other companies are also working out their own ways to deliver drugs to the brain. They include Denali Therapeutics, which demonstrated in animal studies last year how it is combining antisense oligonucleotides with a transferrin-targeting transport vehicle platform to successfully knock down certain gene activity across the brain.
Back in April, GSK penned a $2.5 billion deal to use a South Korean company’s tech in efforts to bypass the blood-brain barrier.