Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Another biotech startup revealed plans Friday evening for an initial public offering, making it the sixth startup to list new shares or file for an IPO in the last two weeks. CAMP4 Therapeutics, a six-year-old startup founded by the Whitehead Institute’s Richard Young and Harvard Medical School’s Leonard Zon, plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker $CAMP , according to an SEC filing . The Cambridge, MA-based biotech is working on regulatory RNAs, or regRNAs. The startup is creating antisense oligonucleotides to bind to regRNA and control protein expression to regulate genetic diseases. CAMP4’s initial focus is on metabolic and CNS diseases. Its first candidate, CMP-CPS-001, is in Phase 1 testing and is being looked at for urea cycle disorders, an inherited metabolic disease that impairs the body’s ability to remove waste. CAMP4 expects initial data in the first quarter of next year. The filing is almost certain to be read as yet another sign of optimism for otherwise chilly biotech markets, following a long-awaited interest rate cut earlier this week by the Federal Reserve that’s jolted the stock market to all-time highs. The company has a license agreement and discovery deal with Fulcrum Therapeutics and an R&D pact for up to three ASOs with Eli Lilly, according to its SEC filing. In early 2020, it also disclosed a tie-up with Biogen for mapping the brain. CAMP4 did not disclose how much it expects to raise in the proposed IPO. It spent $19 million on R&D in the first half of this year, a $1 million decrease over the year prior. It had $12.6 million in cash and equivalents at the end of June. The company’s last disclosed financing was a $100 million Series B in July 2022. Enavate Sciences is the biggest shareholder and owns about 19% of the shares. Enavate is also one of the largest shareholders of another biotech that unveiled its IPO ambitions earlier this week, the respiratory drug developer Upstream Bio . 5AM Ventures; Polaris Partners; Northpond Ventures; Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s AH Bio; HarbourVest Partners; and Kaiser Permanente all own more than 5% of CAMP4. Leading the 64-employee biotech is Josh Mandel-Brehm, who’s been at the company since the beginning and previously worked on business development at Biogen and Sanofi.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and WASHINGTON, July 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Tiba Biotech LLC, a Cambridge-based preclinical biopharmaceutical company, announces its new partnership with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through initiation of an EZ-BAA contract to develop groundbreaking therapeutics against influenza. The U.S. $749,999 contract, awarded through a highly competitive review process, supports early-stage therapeutic platform development for the Flexible and Strategic Therapeutics (FASTx) program of BARDA. This initiative aims to advance cutting-edge therapeutic platform technologies, such as RNA-mediated interference (RNAi), which could be rapidly deployed in response to emerging viral threats. Tiba Biotech's initial focus will be on developing a prototype RNAi-based therapeutic for H1N1 influenza that targets the highly conserved viral nucleoprotein and will be delivered via Tiba's RNABLTM platform. "We are excited to receive this BARDA award, which will advance Tiba's innovative approach to combating influenza and other viral threats," said Dr. Jasdave Chahal, co-founder and lead investigator of the project. "We believe our technology has the potential to transform the landscape of RNA therapeutics." This initiative is a natural extension of Tiba's ongoing work combating influenza pandemic threats, most notably in the form of a novel multi-antigen mRNA-based H7N9 flu vaccine funded under a Phase II SBIR award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and ongoing collaborations with the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs). Tiba was also recently accepted into BLUE KNIGHT ™, a joint initiative between Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS ('JLABS') and BARDA, with an aim to harness innovation to combat future known and unknown health threats. This project is being supported in whole with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under contract number 75A50124C00014. About Tiba Biotech Tiba Biotech is a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation RNA vaccines and therapeutics based on a novel dendrimer nanoparticle delivery platform, initially developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Tiba Biotech's nanoparticle delivery platform can safely enable large vaccine and therapeutic payloads with relaxed cold-chain requirements and superior safety compared to existing RNA delivery technologies, providing protection against multiple human and animal diseases. For more information about Tiba Biotech, visit , follow us on X (formally Twitter) @TibaBiotech and LinkedIn. SOURCE Tiba Biotech

License provides exclusive access to innovative epigenetic editors and expands the reach of Chroma's platform BOSTON, June 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chroma Medicine, Inc. (Chroma) a genomic medicine company pioneering single-course epigenetic editing therapeutics, today announced it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with the Whitehead Institute to access intellectual property and technology developed in the lab of Chroma co-founder Jonathan Weissman, Ph.D. The novel technology called CHARM (coupled histone tail for autoinhibition release of methyltransferase) uses a compact epigenetic editing effector domain to recruit and activate endogenous DNA methyltransferases to durably silence target genes. CHARM can utilize a self-silencing mechanism to limit its duration of expression and has been shown by Dr. Weissman's lab to induce brain-wide prion protein silencing in vivo. With an aim to deliver on the transformative potential of epigenetic editing, Chroma is expanding the versatility of its platform by leveraging this new technology to rapidly advance a new class of therapeutics that harness epigenetics, nature's innate mechanism for gene regulation, to achieve unparalleled control of gene expression without cutting, nicking, or altering the DNA sequence. "This agreement is a powerful example of our deep commitment to innovation in genomic medicines," said Catherine Stehman-Breen, M.D., Chroma's Chief Executive Officer. "Adding CHARM to our arsenal of technologies strengthens our mission to bring a broad portfolio of durable epigenetic editing therapeutics to patients." About Whitehead Institute and Weissman Laboratory Whitehead Institute is a world-renowned non-profit research institute dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. Whitehead Institute's mission is to forge new frontiers in science, uncovering insights today that unlock the potential of tomorrow. The Weissman Laboratory is looking at how cells ensure that proteins fold into their correct shape, as well as the role of protein misfolding in disease and normal physiology. They are also developing experimental and analytical approaches for exploring the organizational principles of biological systems and globally monitoring protein translation through ribosome profiling. About Chroma Medicine Chroma Medicine is a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of genomic medicines that harness epigenetics, nature's innate mechanism for gene regulation, to deliver precise, programmable single-course therapeutics while preserving genomic integrity. The company's modular platform enables development of medicines that can address a wide range of complex diseases, whether they require silencing, activation, or targeting multiple genes at once. Chroma was founded by the world's foremost experts in genomic research and is led by a veteran team of industry leaders and scientists with deep experience in genomic medicine, drug discovery, and development. For more information, please visit chromamedicine.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X (formerly known as Twitter). SOURCE Chroma Medicine