Moonwalk Biosciences, a genomic medicine company pioneering precision epigenetic medicines announced the completion of $57 million in seed and Series A financing from Alpha Wave Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Future Ventures, GV, Khosla Ventures and YK Bioventures. The financing will support continued advancement of Moonwalk’s epigenetic profiling and engineering technology platform and progress its pipeline of epigenetic therapeutics towards the clinic.
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By targeting the epigenetic code – the software of the genome – Moonwalk aims to reprogram cells to their healthy state, fundamentally enabling a new approach to how therapies are discovered and developed. Moonwalk is the first company that couples an epigenetic discovery platform with precise engineering – opening up the epigenome as a new target space for complex diseases. Moonwalk’s focus on epigenetic engineering leverages comprehensive read-and-write technologies to develop potentially curative therapies for a variety of different diseases at the root cause level.
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Moonwalk was co-founded by Alex Aravanis, M.D., Ph.D., Arash Jamshidi, Ph.D., and Justin Valley, Ph.D., leaders in biotechnology who bring decades of proven execution on translating complex science into clinical products, as well as scientific co-founder Feng Zhang, Ph.D., core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, McGovern Institute investigator, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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The company’s mission is to develop effective, safe and durable epigenetic medicines that leverage the most comprehensive insights on cellular epigenetics to date across a variety of indications.
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“Epigenetics is the software of the genome. While changes to the genome are irreversible, edits to the epigenome can be reprogrammed in different ways. Epigenetic changes determine whether genes are turned on or off, and can potentially reverse disease, broadening the therapeutic landscape to find potential cures previously thought impossible,” said Alex Aravanis, M.D., Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder, Moonwalk Biosciences. “Epigenome engineering is the next frontier of genetic medicines, and we believe the most effective strategies require a deep understanding of the epigenetic landscape of cellular states. This emerging new field can create safer and more effective treatments for a broad range of diseases without damaging or changing the underlying DNA sequence.”
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About Moonwalk Biosciences
Moonwalk Biosciences is an early-stage therapeutics company co-founded by Dr. Feng Zhang and leading experts in cell state epigenetics including Alex Aravanis, the former CTO of Illumina. The company has developed a differentiated approach to mapping the epigenome of cellular states at the whole genome, single cell resolution level, as well as proprietary strategies for precise epigenetic engineering. The combination enables both a novel discovery platform and a path to developing therapeutics that include both epigenetic engineering and other traditional modalities.
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