From research to development: Atalanta bags $97m to advance two RNAi therapiesFrom research to development: Atalanta bags $97m to advance two RNAi therapies

Atalanta, a biotechnology firm focused on developing treatment options for neurodegenerative diseases, has previously worked with the backing of just one investor. Now, as the company transitions from research to development, it has welcomed more investors to its fundraising round.

“Atalanta’s series A was led exclusively by F-Prime Capital. Non-dilutive capital from partnerships beginning in 2021 enabled a capital efficient build and as the company prepares to transition from Research to Development the series B round brings in an expanded blue-chip syndicate of investors,” Alicia Secor, CEO of Atalanta, told BioXconomy.

The financing round was co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Sanofi Ventures. Along with existing investor F-Prime Capital, new investors participated, including Novartis Venture Fund, RiverVest Venture Partners, Mirae Asset Financial Group, funds managed by abrdn Inc, and GHR Foundation.  

From a financial perspective, Secor commented how “it is certainly a more challenging time for our industry overall.” However, “we were gratified to see that the interest from investors was strong, and even exceeded where we ultimately capped the round at.  We think this speaks to great interest and belief in our novel divalent short interfering RNA (di-siRNA) platform to durably silence disease promoting genes throughout previously inaccessible regions of the brain.”

The Series B funds will be used to support Phase I clinical trials of Atalanta’s investigational RNA interference (RNAi) therapies for KCNT1-related Huntington’s disease and epilepsy. Additionally, the firm will develop its pipeline for various neurological diseases.

Investigational new drug (IND) submissions are expected to happen this year for its first two programs. ATL-201 is Atalanta’s investigational therapy for KCNT1-related epilepsy, an early-onset seizure disorder and encephalopathy driven by gain-of-function variants in the KCNT1 gene.

The candidate has been designed to minimize KCNT1 levels and to normalize neuronal excitability. According to Atalanta, preclinical studies have displayed that ATL-201 delivers a substantial reduction of seizures and improvement in behaviour.

The second candidate, ATL-101, is a di-siRNA. It has been designed to suppress the huntingtin gene (HTT) gene for the treatment of Huntington’s disease. Preclinical studies have shown that a single dose of ATL-101 can reduce HTT expression with six months of durability and tolerability.

When asked by this publication about future fundraising plans, Secor told us: “As we advance our lead programs toward the clinic and grow our pipeline, we will continue to attend to the capital needs of the company. We will provide additional detail when we are ready.”