The platform is said to detect and optimise new, customisable LNPs to safely and effectively deliver RNA and gene therapies to specific extrahepatic tissues in the body
Mana.bio has developed an AI-based LNP delivery platform. (Credit: National Cancer Institute on Unsplash)
Mana.bio, a biotechnology company working on programmable drug delivery, has raised $19.5m in a seed financing round to advance the development of its artificial intelligence (AI)-based lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platform.
The company’s proprietary, purpose-built AI LNP platform is designed to expedite the development of vaccines and nucleic acid-based therapeutics.
The platform is said to detect and optimise new, customisable LNPs to safely and effectively deliver RNA and gene therapies to specific extrahepatic tissues in the body.
The seed financing round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health, Base4 Capital, NFX, Technion, and LionBird.
Mana.bio intends to use the funds to advance its platform to develop therapies for several unmet needs.
Mana.bio co-founder and CEO Yogev Debbi said: “The field of LNP discovery has historically been driven by stochastic experimental discovery, and has lacked systematic, methodical optimisation across the full space of potential chemistries and formulations.
“We believe that artificial intelligence methods provide a unique way to learn from the world’s previously generated LNP data, novel data that we generate every day in our own lab, and even the design principles of adjacent non-LNP delivery systems.
“Mana.bio’s integrated experimental and machine learning platform enables the discovery of smarter, faster, more precise delivery formulations to unlock the field of nucleic acid-based and genetic medicines.
“We are encouraged by our platform’s early in vivo success and for its potential to deliver breakthrough therapies for a broad range of diseases.”
The company’s approach is based on academic research from the Haifa, Israel-based Technion Institute of Technology.
It went through AI-enabled design, build, test and learn steps, allowing the business to quickly innovate and optimise LNPs for targeted delivery of RNA therapies.