Entrada Raises $59M to Advance Program to Treat Rare, Deadly Mitochondrial Disease

Entrada Therapeutics has raised $59 million in Series A financing to advance its intracellular enzyme replacement therapy program for treatment of a rare and deadly mitochondrial disease.

Series A financing is the first round of financing given to a new business after the seed capital has been secured.

One of the most frequent problems during drug development is the ability to deliver the drug where it’s needed. In many cases, the drug must be delivered intracellularly (inside a cell) to have an effect.

Entrada has developed a proprietary platform that has shown the ability to deliver a range of substances into the cell, allowing the company to develop programs for intracellular targets.

The platform exhibits superior bioavailability (the proportion of a drug that enters the body’s circulation and is able to have an active effect), biodistribution (distribution or localization of drug), drug stability in the body and efficiency compared to current gold-standard drug delivery vehicles.

Entrada plans to apply this biologics platform for delivery of intracellular enzyme replacement therapies (for diseases in which a patient lacks a specific enzyme) and other diseases.

“With this financing, Entrada is well-positioned to advance multiple programs through the application of our proprietary intracellular biologics platform,” Dipal Doshi, president and CEO of Entrada Therapeutics, said in a press release.

Entrada’s platform will initially be used to develop treatment for a rare and lethal mitochondrial disease that results from genetic mutation that causes an insufficiency in an intracellular enzyme. This disease has no currently approved treatments.

With the Series A financing, Entrada will be able to advance the mitochondrial disease program to human clinical trials.

The financing was co-led by 5AM Ventures, MPM Capital, Roche Venture Fund, MRL Ventures Fund (MRLV) and Agent Capital.

“Entrada has an executive team that is capable of tackling the challenges posed by the delivery of biologics into the cell. Entrada is focused on leveraging a highly validated biological mechanism to fundamentally change the standard of care for several of these diseases via multiple intracellular targets,” said Kush Parmar, MD, PhD, managing partner at 5AM Ventures.

“Entrada’s unique vision to transform the treatment paradigm of certain diseases via intracellular biologics delivery could result in innovative treatments for thousands of patients,” said Todd Foley, managing director at MPM Capital. “While there has been extensive development of biologics that address extracellular targets, there is a significant opportunity for novel biologics that address intracellular targets.”

Entrada also plans to extend its rare and monogenic disease (diseases caused by mutation in one gene) pipeline by identifying and developing more intracellular enzyme replacement therapies.