Broken String Biosciences has closed a $15 million Series A investment round to develop its mapping platform into a scalable offering.
The round was co-led by Illumina Ventures and Mérieux Equity Partners, with contributions from HERAN Partners, and existing investors Tencent and Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures (DvH Ventures).
The Series A funding will be used to develop Broken String’s Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)-based DNA break mapping platform, INDUCE-seq, into a scalable ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS) offering and to expand its capabilities beyond gene editing, broadening its go-to-market strategy and driving commercial traction.
Our vision is a future where cell and gene therapies are safer, more efficient, and affordable for patients
- Felix Dobbs, CEO of Broken String Biosciences
The investment also supports the company’s ongoing growth, including recruitment for its UK team based at the Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, and the establishment of a US office.
The progress of cell and gene therapies based on genome editing technologies, such as CRISPR-Cas9, requires stringent pre-clinical assessments of off-target editing events. INDUCE-seq enables researchers to assess the specificity of genome editing tools and evaluate the associated off-target genetic outcomes.
The platform technology addresses the limitations of existing gene editing off-target measurement approaches; leveraging a novel polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-free approach to directly measure and quantify DNA double-strand breaks using NGS.
It provides data-driven, actionable insights across the discovery, pre-clinical and clinical development stages to unlock new therapeutic targets within the genome and to advance gene editing programs.
Felix Dobbs, PhD, CEO of Broken String Biosciences, commented: “Our vision is a future where cell and gene therapies are safer, more efficient, and affordable for patients. Operating at the intersection of biology, bioinformatics and data science, our INDUCE-seq platform offers an unbiased, end-to-end solution that expedites the measurement and assessment of off-target gene editing during therapeutic development.”
Arnaud Autret, PhD, Principal at Illumina Ventures, said: “The clinical progression of cell and gene therapies is held back by off-target safety concerns – we recognise the power of Broken String Biosciences’ technology to drive advances in safer genome editing, genome biology and genetic toxicology, and optimise drug development programs. The platform has the potential to become the gold-standard solution for measuring off-target gene editing.”