SRTD Biotech raises €31.5 million Seed for precision mRNA drugs
Jülich-based SRTD Biotech closed an oversubscribed €31.5 million Seed round led by Mérieux Equity Partners to develop mRNA therapies that act only in diseased cells.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesSRTD Biotech, a startup based in Jülich, Germany, has closed an oversubscribed €31.5 million Seed round to develop precision mRNA therapeutics. Mérieux Equity Partners led the financing through its Mérieux Innovation 2 fund, with NRW.BANK and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund joining as co-leads. Lilly Ventures, HTGF and the Freiburg-based family office Anobis Asset also took part.
Activating mRNA only where it is needed
Founded in 2019 by Dr. Bernd Hoffmann and Dr. Heribert Bohlen, SRTD has developed an approach to cell-specific mRNA expression. It uses intracellular RNA disease markers that switch on mRNA expression exclusively inside target cells. According to the company, these selectively expressed RNA (seRNA) constructs allow therapeutic payloads to be produced in diseased cells while limiting exposure in healthy tissue.
SRTD says this could lead to safer and more effective RNA therapies that overcome the limits of non-selective mRNA expression and of targeting cell-surface proteins. The company combines three platforms: its seRNA technology, a fusogenic lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platform designed to reach the liver, lung, brain and other organs, and a synthetic biology platform with bioinformatics and AI-driven RNA design.
New leadership
Matthias Alder, who has held CEO, COO and CBO roles at publicly traded biotech companies in the US and Europe, has been appointed CEO. Dr. Heinz Koeppl, a professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and director of its Centre for Synthetic Biology, joins as Chief Technology Officer. Together with Hoffmann he will lead scientific strategy, focusing on RNA marker identification and AI-based construct optimisation. Dr. Jens Hennecke recently joined as Chief Business Officer to pursue R&D collaborations beyond SRTD's own pipeline.
NRW.BANK invested through its NRW.Venture EU Tech&Scale fund. Under an InvestEU guarantee agreement with the European Commission, the Düsseldorf-based bank can commit up to €200 million to young scale-ups through the fund.
According to Alder, the proceeds will help advance RNA therapeutics for patients whose diseases remain inadequately addressed by current treatments.
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