1E Therapeutics announced $120 million seed funding, a remarkable feat for an early-stage biotech company. The funding is the largest of its kind for an Israeli biotech company.
Today, 1E Therapeutics announced it raised $120 million for its seed funding round. The funding is believed to be the largest of its kind for an Israeli biotech company.
A relatively new player founded five months ago, 1E is taking key steps to launch a first-in-class RNA-targeting therapeutics based on a proprietary drug design platform.
Details about the company are limited, but according to reports from employees, the 1E offices and laboratories in the Rehovot Science Park, in Israel are comparable to those of big established companies. One employee was quoted saying, “I have never seen such a collection of advanced equipment in one lab, not in the industry or in the academy. I estimate that the cost of the equipment alone came to tens of millions of dollars.” The company has dozens of researchers and is expanding its team.
No details about the company’s activity in the building are available now, but its one-page website offers more information about the drug company, stating, “1E’s groundbreaking process has proven uniquely able to develop innovative drugs that address chronic life-threatening indications as well as emerging and evolving pathogens. 1E already has lead compounds that address a wide array of indications in oncology, age-related diseases, immunology, anti-microbial resistance, viral infections, and orphan neurological disorders.”
Dr. Ido Bachelet, a Ph.D. in medical sciences from Hebrew University who completed his postdoctoral training at MIT and Harvard at the George Church laboratory, is 1E’s lead scientist. Dr. Bachelet is a recognized innovator in therapeutic DNA origami, synthetic biology, biomimetics, and several companies’ founder.
Serial entrepreneur Marius Nacht, one of the co-founders of Check Point and currently considered the most prominent Israeli investor active in the biotech and medtech industries, is one of the top financiers in the company. Nacht’s investment portfolio includes companies in life sciences, healthcare, software, AI, mobility, cyber security, sustainability, energy, and semiconductors.
It is not the first time Bachelet and Nacht have collaborated in business. They have worked together several times in the past, including in Wild Biotech company, a preclinical stage drug discovery and development company developing an AI-powered drug-discovery platform that can jumpstart the creation of new medicines for treating the incurable.
