BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Acrigen Biosciences, Inc. (“Acrigen”), an early-stage biotechnology company developing precision gene editing technology and genetic medicines, today announced its seed financing round led by Red Tree Venture Capital with participation from Alexandria Venture Investments, the Berkeley Catalyst Fund, Dolby Family Ventures, and biotechnology entrepreneur investors. The capital will be used to advance Acrigen’s therapeutic pipeline toward the clinic and accelerate research and development of novel precision editing systems. Heath Lukatch, PhD, founder and managing partner at Red Tree Venture Capital, will join Acrigen’s Board of Directors.

“Acrigen's mission is to advance and transform precision gene editing technology to produce effective and safe in vivo drug therapies to cure disease. Our team has made tremendous progress building a proprietary gene editing platform and validating its utility against multiple therapeutic targets,” said David Rabuka, PhD, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Acrigen. “With the support and partnership of our investors, we are looking forward to pushing our clinical pipeline forward and continuing on our journey to help patients with genetic diseases."

Acrigen was established with a core team from the leading gene editing laboratories at the University of California Berkeley. The company recently expanded its leadership team, welcoming Trevor Collingwood, PhD, as Chief Technology Officer. With over 15 years of broad experience in the field of genome editing, his expertise spans research and development, corporate strategy, business development, and intellectual property. Dr. Collingwood has worked extensively with leading CRISPR companies and led technology development teams developing pioneering gene editing platforms. With the financing, Acrigen plans to continue its growth with key hires across the company.

“Acrigen has already demonstrated success in building differentiated precision genome editing systems and is applying these novel editors to combat genetic disorders,” said Heath Lukatch, founder and managing partner at Red Tree Venture Capital. “Acrigen’s proprietary nucleases, used in combination with their engineered anti-CRISPR proteins, have the potential to set a new standard for high fidelity genome editing. With this financing, Red Tree is excited to support the Acrigen team in their mission and continued growth of the company.”

About Acrigen Biosciences

Acrigen Biosciences is an early-stage life science gene editing company based in Berkeley, California. We are building a pipeline of therapies to treat genetic disorders using our proprietary precision gene editing technology. Our technology utilizes novel CRISPR-Cas gene editors coupled with anti-CRISPR proteins to improve the precision, efficacy, and safety of genetic therapies. The company was co-founded in 2019 by Dr. Joseph Bondy-Denomy (Associate Professor at UCSF and discoverer of anti-CRISPR proteins) and Dr. David Rabuka (former Founder and CSO of Redwood Bioscience) with the mission of bringing precision genetic therapies to patients. For more information, go to www.acrigen.com.

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