Moonwalk Biosciences plans to shepherd its lead obesity asset into first-in-human trials in late 2027. In preclinical studies, MW101 has demonstrated weight loss and fat reduction while maintaining muscle mass.
Eli Lilly–backed obesity drugmaker Moonwalk Biosciences has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round to support its efforts to advance a long-lasting RNAi-based treatment to clinical trials.
Moonwalk’s lead obesity candidate, MW101, has demonstrated weight loss and fat reduction in mice while maintaining muscle mass without reducing food intake, a sought after combination in the growing metabolic market, currently dominated by GLP-1 drugs from pharma giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.
The Series B financing will support MW101 on its way to first-in-human studies, which the company said are planned for late 2027, according to a Tuesday press release. The round was led by Alpha Wave Ventures and YK Bioventures, along with Lilly, Gaorong Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Future Ventures.
Moonwalk’s drug works differently from appetite-suppressing GLP-1s in that it uses small interfering RNA to target adipose tissue, which stores fat under the skin and is thought to contain underlying causes of obesity, according to the company.
Moonwalk has several other candidates in the works, all in preclinical trials, aimed at lowering fat to tackle obesity. The company’s discovery engine is an AI platform that brings together genetics, epigenomics and other omics to find siRNA therapies that will reduce adipose fat without the gastric upset and muscle loss that patients receiving GLP-1s can experience.
“This financing brings us closer to developing a new generation of adipose-targeted medicines designed to improve outcomes for people living with obesity and related cardiometabolic diseases,” Moonwalk CEO Alex Aravanis said in a company release.
Based on preclinical studies, the differentiated approach is what makes Moonwalk a potential player that could “redefine how obesity is treated by delivering therapies with the potential for durable efficacy, lean muscle preservation and infrequent dosing,” Alpha Wave CEO Rick Gerson said in a statement alongside the biotech’s release.
The second round of financing comes after a seed launch of $57 million in early 2024 backed by Feng Zhang, a MIT neuroscientist and serial entrepreneur who played a role in the rise of CRISPR gene editing technology.
At the time of Moonwalk’s launch in 2024, the global epigenetics market was estimated to reach a value of $7 billion by 2033, led by genetic advances in oncology and neuroscience.
