NewLimit raises $435m for liver trials, and other financings
Longevity startup NewLimit has raised an eye-watering $435 million to take its lead age reprogramming candidate into human clinical testing next year.
The Series C round, revealed in a blog post by co-founder and chief executive Jacob Kimmel, brings forward the timeline previously laid out by the company, driven by what he said was "the breakthrough discovery of a prototype medicine that reverses cell age in old human liver cells."
The prototype drug is based on lipid nanoparticle-delivered RNA coding for specialised proteins called transcription factors that control the activity of genes and can be used to switch their activity on or off.
South San Francisco-based NewLife was founded in 2021 by cryptocurrency company Coinbase's co-founder Brian Armstrong, venture capitalist Blake Byers, and computational biologist Kimmel, with a mission to develop epigenetic reprogramming therapies and $110 million in seed capital. That initial funding was topped up with a $40 million Series A in 2023 and a $130 million second round last year.
"Our liver reprogramming therapy allows livers to heal faster after injury, avoid damage from dietary challenges, and accelerate recovery from alcohol consumption," said Kimmel. "Our trial next year will reveal how liver age reprogramming translates into humans for the first time."
The round was led by Founders Fund – co-founded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel – and backed new investors Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, and Quiet Capital, along with returning investors including Kleiner Perkins, Abstract, Nat Friedman/Daniel Gross, Valor Equity Partners, Eli Lilly Ventures, and Human Capital.
Other recent VC rounds
Spanish antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) specialist Ona Therapeutics has added to its funds with an $86.6 million Series B, co-led by new investors Columbus Venture Partners and Mérieux Equity Partners, that will fund the development of lead candidates ONA-255 for breast cancer and ONA-389 for colorectal cancer. The targets for the two ADCs have not been disclosed.
The round, which follows a €30 million ($35 million) Series A in 2020, saw participation from new investors COFIDES and Korys, alongside existing backers Alta Life Sciences, Asabys Partners, Bpifrance, CDTI through SICC Innvierte, FundPlus NV, and Ysios Capital.
UK startup IMU Biosciences has completed a £40 million ($53 million) first round to continue to build its multi-omic and AI-powered immune biology dataset, built using samples from over 25,000 people to date. The map can be used to understand immune function, deliver actionable insights for patients and healthcare providers, and inform the development of new diagnostics and drug therapies, according to the London firm.
The Series A was co-led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures, and supported by The British Business Bank and Meltwind, alongside existing investors.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Oak Hill Bio closed a $32.5 million Series A, co-led by Balyasny Asset Management, venBio, and Janus Henderson Investors, as it prepares to take its antisense-based rugonersen therapy for rare disease Angelman syndrome – which has no approved treatments – into a phase 3 trial.
Rugonersen was originally developed by Roche and is designed to restore the production of a protein called UBE3A that is deficient in the disorder and causes delayed development, including problems with movement, balance, and learning. KCap Biotechnology Fund also participated in the round.
Finally, Secretome Therapeutics booked $30 million in its Series A, backed solely by RA Capital, that will support the development of a neonatal cardiac progenitor cell (nCPC) candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy-associated cardiomyopathy, STM-01, which is being prepared for pivotal phase 2/3 studies.
STM-01 also started a phase 1 trial last year for heart failure in young adults with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a rare but life-threatening form of heart failure that affects between 500 and 1,000 children in the US.
Image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay
