Dyne Therapeutics closed on a $50 million Series A round. The company was founded, seeded and incubated by Atlas Venture, who led the round, which was joined by Forbion and MPM Capital.
Dyne Therapeutics closed on a $50 million Series A round. The company was founded, seeded and incubated by Atlas Venture, who led the round, which was joined by Forbion and MPM Capital. The company was founded, seeded and incubated by Atlas Venture, who led the round, which was joined by Forbion and MPM Capital.
Based in Cambridge, Mass., Dyne will focus on myotonic dystrophy type 1, a rare genetic disease that affects about 40,000 people in the U.S. There are currently no treatments for the disease, which causes muscle weakness.
The company has brought on two former Sarepta executives who have a background in muscle diseases. They are Catherine Stehman-Breen, who was Sarepta’s chief medical officer in 2017, and holds the same title at Dyne. Bruce Wentworth, who was Sarepta’s research director, is Dyne’s senior science advisor. Mo Qatanani is Dyne’s vice president of discovery and translational research. Qatanani previously led drug discovery programs at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Merck. Jonathan McNeill is Dyne’s vice president of business development. He previously held business and corporate development positions at Editas Medicine.
According to the company’s president and chief executive officer, Romesh Subramanian, one problem that drugs for muscular diseases have is that not enough of the drug reaches the muscle. Dyne has developed a method for delivering drugs to all muscle types that is similar to antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) used with some cancer therapies. In ADCs, a chemotherapeutic drug is attached by a molecular linker to an antibody that specifically targets cancer cells. This tends to avoid damage to healthy cells.
Dyne’s antibodies target specific muscle tissue. The company attaches these antibodies to oligonucleotide therapies that can degrade disease-causing RNA.
One drug currently on the market that is oligonucleotide-based is Biogen’s Spinraza (nusinersen) for spinal muscular atrophy, which is engineered to increase production of a protein required for muscle function.
Myotonic dystrophy type 1 results in the creation of toxic RNA that disrupts normal muscle function.
Subramanian co-founded RaNA Therapeutics, now Translate Bio. He also led research at Alexion. He tells Xconomy that in preclinical work, Dyne delivered its drugs to skeletal, smooth, and cardiac muscle, and they then degraded RNA within the muscle tissues. The company plans to use the funds raised to advance its myotonic dystrophy type 1 drug into the clinic, although there is at this time no timeline announced.
“We are launching with a singular goal: to change the lives of patients with DM1 and other serious muscle diseases,” Subramanian stated. “Our innovative approach makes this possible, and our commitment to patients and their families makes it necessary. We appreciate the strong support of our investors who share this vision.”
The company’s tech platform is called FORCE, which specifically targets muscle.
The company’s scientific advisory board includes Nancy Andrews, former dean of the School of Medicine at Duke University; Louis Kunkel, member of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of pediatrics and genetics at Harvard Medical School; Charles Thornton, Saunders Distinguished Professor of Neuromuscular Research at the University of Rochester; and Sudhir Agrawal, visiting professor in the Department of Medicine at The University of Massachusetts Medical School and founder of Idera Pharmaceuticals.
The company’s board includes Jason Rhodes, partner at Atlas; Ed Hurwitz, managing director at MPM Capital, Dirk Kersen, general partner at Forbion, and Romesh Subramanian.
