NeuroGen Biotech Secures Tens of Millions RMB in Seed Funding to Advance Novel Gene Therapies

Recently, NEUREGEN announced the completion of its angel round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB. This round of financing was led by the JSG United Runpu Medical Fund and will be mainly used for team building, technology platform construction, and the early-stage development of novel gene therapy drugs.

NEUREGEN was founded in December 2021 as a biotechnology company aimed at developing novel gene therapy drugs by leveraging its proprietary cell transdifferentiation technology and genetic substitution technology. Established by a closely-knit team of neurobiologists, ophthalmology experts, gene therapy specialists, and veterans from the biopharmaceutical industry, the company is committed to transforming emerging cell transdifferentiation technologies into solutions addressing unmet clinical needs. Currently, NEUREGEN has built a novel gene therapy drug development platform centered on cell transdifferentiation technology, encompassing key technologies such as transdifferentiation factor screening, viral and non-viral vector design, and in vivo and in vitro pharmacodynamic method development, with several critical patents already filed. The company’s product pipeline focuses on neurological diseases, prioritizing the development of proprietary, first-in-class gene therapies for blinding eye conditions and difficult-to-treat nervous system tumors.

Diseases of the central nervous system are currently a leading cause of disability worldwide and the second leading cause of death globally. As China continues to move into an era of population aging, the number of patients with neurological diseases in China is also growing. Over the past 30 years, the number of patients who died from central nervous system diseases has increased by 39%. The social and economic losses caused by central nervous system diseases are enormous, often accounting for more than 50% of the total healthcare and nursing expenditures in society.

In the field of neural regeneration, current gene therapies are unable to effectively reverse the progression and deterioration of damage caused by the central nervous system. The key lies in solving the problem of neuronal regeneration. Over the past few decades, solutions to this issue have focused on embryonic stem cell transplantation, but this approach faces risks of potential immune rejection as well as high costs. Therefore, in recent years, scientists have shifted their focus to in-situ transdifferentiation technology, which not only opens up a new path in the field of neural regeneration but also has garnered continuous attention within the industry due to its many advantages, such as avoiding immune rejection, reducing ethical risks, and relatively low cost.

For example, the in-situ regeneration technology of the central nervous system utilizes the characteristic of endogenous glial cells to self-divide and regenerate. By expressing neural transcription factors or other methods, glial cells are converted in situ into functional neurons.