Latus Launches with State-of-the-Art Gene Therapy Development Technologies, Two Lead Product Candidates, and an Initial $54 Million in Series A Financing

Latus Bio, Inc. (“Latus”), a biotechnology company developing novel gene therapy candidates for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS), today announced its launch and an initial close of $54 million in Series A financing.

The funding round is being led by 8VC and DCVC Bio. To date, Samsung Life Science Fund (created by Samsung C&T, Samsung Biologics, Samsung Bioepis and Samsung Venture Investment Corporation), The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation, Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners, Modi Ventures, and Gaingels have joined as syndicate partners.

Originating from the lab of co-founder Professor Beverly Davidson at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Latus is developing CNS gene therapy candidates, using proprietary technologies that have been used to identify and engineer novel adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid variants with the aim of showing unprecedented potency, specificity, and safety.

AAV-mediated gene therapy has long held promise for the treatment of genetically-defined CNS disorders; but, until now, it has been limited by its inability to transduce specific CNS substructures and cell types with requisite specificity. These limitations have led to the reliance on high-dose injections that cause off-target toxicity and difficulties in scalable manufacturing. Latus’s proprietary technologies aim to directly address these challenges by enabling massively paralleled and unbiased screening of novel AAV capsids directly in non-human primates (“NHP”). In these preclinical NHP models, Latus’s capsid variants demonstrated high gene expression in precise CNS locations with target cell specificity and minimal-to-no off-tissue activity. Based on these preclinical data, Latus plans to administer low doses of its product candidates in clinical studies, with the goal of improving safety and enabling successful manufacturing.

“We are excited to introduce Latus and our novel approaches to developing AAV-mediated gene therapies, which we believe have the potential to transform the treatment landscape for genetically-defined CNS disorders,” said P. Peter Ghoroghchian, CEO of Latus. “With this initial close of our Series A financing, we are poised to accelerate the development of our innovative candidates for CLN2 disease – with first-in-human dosing planned in late 2025 – and for Huntington’s disease, as we seek to address these challenging conditions.”

Read the full article 

Previous

Next