Tessera Therapeutics Files for IPO Following $300M+ Series C Funding Led by Flagship Pioneering and CDH Investments

Tessera Therapeutics, a biotechnology company applying its proprietary Gene Writing™ technology to the development of gene therapies, recently announced that it has raised over $300 million in Series C financing. The proceeds will be primarily used for platform development, advancing programs into clinical trials, building manufacturing capabilities, and expanding its team. Following this round, combined with the $230 million raised in its Series B financing completed in January 2021, Tessera Therapeutics’ total funding has exceeded $530 million.

Tessera Therapeutics’ latest round of investors features a star-studded lineup, including a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Alaska Permanent Fund, Altitude Life Science Ventures, ARTIS Ventures, Cormorant Asset Management, Flagship Pioneering, Hanwha Impact Partners, Longevity Vision Fund, SoftBank Vision Fund, and CDH Investments, among other prominent investment institutions.

Tessera Therapeutics is a four-year-old gene therapy startup incubated by the U.S. life sciences venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering (FP), and it officially emerged from stealth mode in 2020. Inspired by mobile genetic elements (MGEs), the company focuses on developing Gene Writing therapies, with key indications targeting liver diseases and rare disorders.

Dr. Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Board Director of Tessera Therapeutics, stated, “We are grateful for the support from new partners and existing investors in this financing round. We believe that genetic medicine will represent the next most significant era in the field of medicine—offering the ability to cure genetic diseases and potentially even prevent their onset. This financing will help us fulfill the promise of gene writing technology and advance our mission to cure diseases by rewriting the code of life.”

Dr. Noubar Afeyan, Co-founder and Chairman of Tessera Therapeutics and Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, stated, “While the past decade has seen many advances in genetic medicine, Tessera’s GENE WRITING platform is charting an entirely new course, aiming to revolutionize genetic medicine as we know it. This latest round of financing underscores the tremendous potential of this biological platform to deliver novel therapies and cures for previously untreatable genetic diseases.”

Tessera Therapeutics, founded in 2018, is a pioneer in GENE WRITING technology. The company boasts multiple technology platforms designed to empower scientists and clinicians with the ability to write or rewrite therapeutic information into the human genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. The GENE WRITING platform not only enables the correction of single nucleotides and the deletion or insertion of short DNA sequences, but also allows for the integration of entire genes into the genome. This capability unlocks the potential for a new class of gene therapies, with broad applications anticipated in both in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy fields.It holds the promise of unlocking the potential to cure nearly all genetic diseases, offering revolutionary solutions for other serious conditions such as cancer.

Dr. Liu Dan, Senior Partner at CDH VGCIt stated: “Distinct from existing CRISPR and base editing technologies, Tessera’s gene writing platform circumvents the engineering challenges associated with double-strand breaks (DSBs). By delivering RNA and/or DNA alone, it enables precise insertion of long DNA segments, as well as the replacement, addition, or deletion of any type of DNA. Boasting the most comprehensive gene editing capabilities in the industry, the platform has been validated across multiple hepatic and extrahepatic indications, demonstrating higher editing efficiency and an extremely low off-target rate in mice compared to competitors. Furthermore, pure RNA delivery holds the promise of eliminating the need for viral vectors, significantly reducing cell therapy costs, and enhancing cell viability. The company’s in vivo and ex vivo pipelines are expected to enter clinical trials sequentially over the next two years, offering revolutionary solutions for patients with currently untreatable conditions.”

Gene Writing technology draws inspiration from nature’s genomic architects—mobile genetic elements (MGEs)—and holds promise for overcoming the limitations of current gene editing and gene therapy approaches. Unlike nucleases such as CRISPR, which induce DNA breaks, MGEs can write new DNA sequences directly into the genome. By delivering therapeutic DNA sequences of varying lengths into human cells, MGEs offer the potential to provide novel solutions for treating genetic disorders and other serious diseases. Tessera Therapeutics has designed, constructed, and tested tens of thousands of engineered and synthetic MGEs to create a programmable Gene Writing system capable of writing and rewriting genomic sequences with high efficiency, specificity, and fidelity.

As is well known, Flagship Pioneering is currently globally recognized as a top-tier biotechnology venture capital firm, maintaining high standards for global collaborations and co-investments.Following the completion of this investment in Tessera, CDH Investments has become one of the few Chinese investment institutions to partner with Flagship Pioneering.“We are delighted to co-invest in biotechnology companies at the forefront of such cutting-edge fields alongside partners like Flagship. We believe that gene-writing technologies have the potential to reshape the current landscape of gene therapy and hold broad application potential across other industries. We are committed not only to investing in leading domestic gene therapy technology companies with global competitiveness, such as AccuraGen, Chengyuan Biotech, Hedu Bio, and Huida Genomics, but also to further collaborating with top-tier global venture capital firms to invest in overseas targets, pursuing professional value investment in frontier biotechnology from a global perspective,” said Liu Dan.