MiNA Therapeutic bags £23m financing

Mina Therapeutics plc’s Series A round was led by aMoon, Israel’s largest healthtech and life sciences venture fund, with participation from existing investors Sosei, Golden Triangle Partners and Galloway. The cancer therapy specialist said it will use the assets to advance and expand its pipeline of saRNAs, designed to harness gene activation mechanisms to fight cancer, fibrosis etc., particularly Mina Therapeutics' Phase I hepatocellular carcinoma candidate MTL-CEBPA.

Clincal Phase Ib data on MTL-CEBPA therapy, in combination with sorafenib presented at ASCO conference in June, suggest that an increase of the C/EBP-alpha master regulator levels reduced the amount of immunosuppressive myeloid cells in the tumour microenvirenment and thus improves the efficacy of sorafenib. Though the drug combo was generally well tolerated, it caused 15 SAEs in 10 of 37 patients who were enrolled in the study.

saRNA medicines have shown potential to transform the therapeutic landscape of cancer, chronic metabolic and genetic diseases. The funds will enable MiNA Therapeutics to conduct a Phase II study of MTL-CEBPA in combination with sorafenib in patients with advanced liver cancer and TIMEPOINT, an ongoing Phase I/Ib study of MTL-CEBPA in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced solid tumour malignancies.

 “To date, MiNA’s innovative small activating RNA therapeutic approach has demonstrated the potential to modulate previously undruggable targets in difficult-to-treat indications such as liver cancer,” commented Dr. Gur Roshwalb, Managing Director at aMoon, who has joined the Board of Directors at MiNA Therapeutics upon the financing. “We strongly believe in the potential of this new class of medicines and look forward to collaborating with the team at MiNA to support the continued growth of this technology platform.”