[MassChallenge alumni] Haya lève 20 M$ en seed

When Samir Ounzain left London a decade ago to study a little-understood branch of the genome at a Swiss lab, he wasn’t sure what he would find. Known as long-non-coding RNA, these sections were translated into looping rings of RNA — hence the name — but didn’t actually translate into proteins, and no one was quite sure how many there were or precisely what they were doing. Today he is managing Haya Therapeutics, which has just announced $20 million in seed funding led by Broadview Ventures, a cardiovascular-focused VC. They’ll use the proceeds to try to push an antisense therapy to neutralize Wisper strands into the clinic in 2 to 3 years, while also identifying other long-coding RNAs to drug throughout the body.

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