Laverock Therapeutics, a gene silencing company backed by Mercia Ventures, has expanded its seed funding round, taking the total raised to more than £20m.
The funding round included Mercia, investing alongside Calculus Capital, Eli Lilly and Company, Eos Advisory, Maven Capital Partners and new investor, Norcliffe Capital. The latest funding follows the initial £13.5m investment in 2023.
Gene silencing is currently considered one of the most exciting fields of medicine. Laverock’s unique approach makes use of the body’s own mechanisms to ‘turn down’ or ‘turn off’ specific genes and has the potential to be used in a range of conditions — for example to engineer cells to attack cancers, to reverse genetic disease, or in creating cell transplants to restore lost function.
Its platform uses naturally occurring microRNAs (miRNA), which regulate gene expression by binding to messenger RNA (mRNA). Founded in 2021 by serial biotech entrepreneur David Venables, the London-based company is pioneering a new generation of advanced therapies that would be safer and more effective than current medicines.
It has already demonstrated enhanced results in cells designed to attack solid tumours, which are more difficult to treat using current approaches. The funding will enable it to carry out additional in vivo studies to provide further proof of its effectiveness.
David Venables, CEO of Laverock, added: “The Laverock team has been busy over recent months, continuing to validate our technology platforms but also generating functional data for our therapeutic programmes. This new funding will enable us to continue this development, as well as forming partnerships and collaborations to integrate our technologies into partners’ therapeutic pipelines. I’d like to thank all our existing and new investors for their continued support.”