True Ventures leads funding, pursues mission to invest in companies of broad and lasting impact
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BERKELEY, Calif., April 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Fauna Bio, a biotechnology company leveraging the science of hibernation to improve healthcare for humans, announced that it has raised a total of $4.1 million in seed funding led by True Ventures with strong participation by Longevity Fund and Pacific 8 Ventures, in addition to Boom Capital and Beagle Ventures. The company will use the new funds to expand its discovery platform to help find new therapeutic targets for human diseases.
The first version of Fauna Bio's drug-discovery platform focuses on hibernating mammals, a particularly attractive opportunity for adaptation-inspired therapeutics. Hibernating animals have natural adaptations, providing insights into critical human health problems such as Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, osteoporosis, obesity/diabetes and traumatic injury. These adaptations have inspired early-stage therapies to improve survival after trauma, extend storage for transplant organs, and prevent shivering during therapeutic hypothermia. However, there is not a systematic understanding of the gene networks utilized to generate the protective and healing traits of hibernators. "The current drug discovery process is broken," said Dr. Ashley Zehnder, CEO and co-founder of Fauna Bio. "Historically, pharmaceutical companies have relied on a handful of species that often don't recapitulate human diseases. Now, we are in a very exciting time where we have the ability to examine how species across the entire evolutionary tree combat diseases and live longer, healthier lives. At Fauna, we use these strategies and translate them into human therapies." Zehnder co-founded the company with Dr. Linda Goodman and Dr. Katharine Grabek, both of whom she met while working in the Bustamante Lab at Stanford University. Prior to starting Fauna Bio, Goodman's work focused on comparative genomics, while Grabek's research focused on the functional genomics of the 13-lined ground squirrel (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) with its implications for human health. Currently, the team has performed whole genome, RNA, protein and metabolomic as well as epigenetic sequencing from its internal biobank. They are also integrating publicly available data across a broad range of species to prioritize therapeutic targets. "Ashley, Linda and Katie are a great team with the diverse and complementary backgrounds required to lead deep innovation and succeed in his space," said Rohit Sharma, partner at True Ventures. "Their expertise ties data and insights together in a way that will enable them to advance the best of hibernation science toward the development of new therapeutics." Research labs historically focused on physiology are now producing 'multi-omics data' at an unprecedented rate, increasing by approximately 40-fold since 2008. The dramatic fall in the cost of sequencing, including for novel genomes, makes it possible to expand therapeutics discovery to species that were previously inaccessible to genomic drug discovery approaches. About Fauna Bio About True Ventures
SOURCE Fauna Bio |
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