Jnana Therapeutics, Inc.

The kidney hasn’t always gotten much love from genetic medicine. The organ is vital to our health, but is often viewed as a liability for drug developers. It can flush out otherwise helpful therapies, and many efforts to deliver medicines to it have been foiled by its intricate and effective plumbing. A new startup says that it’s finally figured out how to shuttle RNA-based medicines directly into specific cells of the kidney. After three years in stealth, the Cambridge, MA-based startup, Judo Bio, launched on Monday with $100 million in a combined seed and Series A financing, co-led by Atlas Venture, The Column Group and Droia Ventures. CSO Alfica Sehgal said the idea for the company came during a brainstorming session about the lack of precise treatments in kidney care. “The kidney is not straightforward. It’s a very complex organ with dozens of specialized cell types,” Sehgal told Endpoints News in an interview. To try and solve the problem, the company borrowed a page from one of genetic medicine’s best-known delivery targets — the liver. Alnylam, which pioneered the first gene-silencing treatments, figured out that attaching a sugar molecule known as GalNAc to a siRNA drug would help the treatment get swept up by certain receptors on liver cells. So Judo’s team began to wonder if a similar pairing could be discovered to shuttle siRNA medicines into kidney cells. The startup focused on a kidney receptor known as megalin, which acts like a hungry scavenger, sucking up all manner of proteins and other biomolecules, Sehgal said. Judo has been working on finding molecules that they can use to get siRNA drugs swept up by megalin receptors in the proximal tubular epithelial cells of the kidney, she added. Judo isn’t disclosing the chemical makeup of its megalin-targeting molecules, but in a poster presentation at an RNA conference in Montreal this week, it revealed that in a mouse study, its approach increased the exposure of siRNA in the kidney up to 30-fold compared with naked RNA molecules. One injection lowered gene expression by 50% to 70%, and the effect lasted four weeks. Now more genetic medicine developers are beginning to look at the organ. In August, Versant Ventures and Novartis launched Borealis Biosciences with $150 million to develop RNA medicines for kidney diseases — it disclosed even fewer details about how it plans to deal with delivery. Alnylam leaders have also pointed to the kidney as a potential area of interest as part of its effort to expand the reach of its siRNA medicines beyond the liver. Judo CEO Rajiv Patni, who was recruited to lead the startup last month, told Endpoints it will initially use its siRNA drugs to shut down the production of solute carrier proteins, which line the tubes of the kidney and control levels of molecules like amino acids and glucose in the blood. A class of diabetes drugs known as SGLT2 inhibitors works by blocking certain solute carrier proteins. The startup Jnana Therapeutics, which Otsuka Pharmaceutical bought in a deal worth at least $800 million in August, was focused on making small molecule inhibitors to some of the hundreds of other proteins in the solute carrier family. Judo aims to make genetic medicines that tamp down on these proteins with longer-lasting effects. Patni, who was most recently the head of R&D at Reata Pharmaceuticals before Biogen acquired the company for $7.3 billion last year, won’t say what diseases Judo will focus on first, but he is interested in both rare metabolic diseases like phenylketonuria and urea cycle disorders, as well as more common conditions including diabetes, gout, heart failure and hypertension. “We’re using kidneys as the access point,” Patni said. The company also plans to target kidney cells known as podocytes to directly treat renal diseases, Patni added. But he declined to say when he expects Judo to have a drug candidate ready for the clinic or how long the company’s new funding will last.

Concept art showing a money icon and human hands iStock, cienpies Tuesday’s round brings Bain Capital Life Sciences’ fundraising total to around $6.7 billion since its founding in 2016. Many of its portfolio companies have resulted in high-value exits recently, including Cerevel Therapeutics, Aiolos Bio and Jnana Therapeutics. Bain Capital Life Sciences on Tuesday announced that it has raised approximately $3 billion for its fourth fund, which it will use to support promising companies working on addressing unmet medical needs and improving the lives of patients. The bulk of Bain’s raise—approximately $2.5 billion—comes from “outside commitments” from new and existing investors. Partners, employees and affiliates pitched in the remaining $500 million. Bain did not detail its investment priorities for its fourth fund, only noting that it will use this money to support biotech players developing “transformative medicines, medical devices, diagnostics, and life sciences tools that have the potential to improve the lives of patients with unmet medical needs.” Tuesday’s round brings Bain’s fundraising total to around $6.7 billion since its founding in 2016, according to its announcement. Bain’s third funding round, closed in August 2021 , brought in $1.9 billion, which the firm is using to back companies that it deems undervalued—and with an eye toward broadening its global presence, the company said at the time. Bain’s investment strategy is overseen by more than 25 investment professionals and advisors, who leverage their “extensive” investing experience in the private and public domains, as well as deep operating, consulting, medical and scientific expertise. This strategy appears to be working, with several of Bain’s portfolio firms enjoying high-value exits recently. In December 2023, Cerevel Therapeutics was bought by pharma giant AbbVie for $8.7 billion , a deal that formally closed in last month . Cerevel was working on psychiatric and neurological assets, including its late-stage next-generation antipsychotic emraclidine, being developed for schizophrenia. A month after the AbbVie deal was announced, GSK bought another Bain portfolio company , Aiolos Bio, for $1.4 billion. The agreement bolsters the pharma’s respiratory and inflammatory business with Aiolos’ long-acting monoclonal antibody AIO-001 for moderate-to-severe asthma. Joining Cerevel and Aiolos is Jnana Therapeutics, which was snapped up by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals last month for $800 million. Bain’s fourth fund is among this year’s biggest. In July 2024, fellow investment firm Flagship Pioneering raised $3.6 billion to pump into around 25 new breakthrough companies, especially those that leverage AI-enabled platforms to optimize drug discovery and accelerate the development process. Flagship has raised a total of $6.4 billion since 2021.

Bain Capital Life Sciences has reeled in about $3 billion for its fourth fund, Endpoints News has learned. The Boston-based firm has been on a spree in recent quarters. Its portfolio companies Aiolos Bio , Cerevel , EyeBio and Jnana Therapeutics have all inked or completed M&A exits to GSK, AbbVie, Merck and Otsuka, respectively. The size of the fund was described to Endpoints by people familiar with the raise who spoke on condition of anonymity. The fund is close in size to the $3.6 billion that Flagship Pioneering unveiled earlier this summer, and to the $3 billion ARCH Venture Partners is seeking for its 13th fund, according to SEC filings. Bain’s new fund comes in above an original target of about $2 billion, with a hard cap of $2.5 billion, according to documents from the New Jersey State Investment Council in April. The firm quickly became an integral name in life sciences investing after its inception eight years ago. It has backed more than 70 companies to date. Its third fund, announced in August 2021, came in at $1.9 billion . The new fund had more demand, including more geographic diversity, according to the people familiar with the matter. And there’s still an ample amount from the third fund to continue deploying into existing portfolio companies, they said. While larger in size, the strategy will be much of the same, they said. That includes four main uses: inflection capital for key phases of drug development; growth capital to expand into new geographies and commercialize products; new company formation; and “fallen angels” — helping private and public companies that need a reset. There are more opportunities to do pharma carve-outs like Cerevel, the Bain-backed spinout of Pfizer’s neuroscience assets, according to the individuals. Many large drugmakers have announced pipeline prioritizations in recent years, honing in on specific therapeutic areas and modalities, which leaves room for creating new companies out of shelved or sidelined assets. Bain has also invested in obesity, forging a partnership earlier this year with Atlas and RTW. The trio licensed assets from China-based Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals and is setting up a new company in the US to investigate the experimental medicines, Endpoints reported in May . The new company, code-named Hercules CM for the moment, has $400 million in funding, the second-largest private financing so far this year. It’s also been behind more of this year’s megarounds, including Avistone Biotechnology and Cardurion Pharmaceuticals . One of the firm’s portfolio companies, cell therapy startup Kyverna, joined the Nasdaq in a February IPO. Other names in its portfolio are looking at the IPO process or could do so in the coming 12-18 months, according to one of the sources. Overseeing the portfolio is a relatively big investment operation, with more than two dozen Bain employees focused on drug developers, medical device makers, diagnostics companies and others in the field. Historically, about 20% of funds have gone toward life sciences companies outside of biotech. About $500 million of the new fund comes from Bain partners, employees and affiliates. The remainder comes from existing and new investors.