There are many different things that make human beings special, but if we are being honest, none have played a bigger role for us than our ability to grow on a consistent basis. This is reflected well in whatever we have achieved so far, with one notable piece of representation coming from a creation called technology. Technology, as a concept, has been a standout since the very beginning, and mind you, it’s not just because of an unprecedented skill-set. The reason behind that also revolves around how the creation used those skills to impact an entire spectrum, including a highly-critical area of healthcare. In fact, technology’s foray into healthcare couldn’t have arrived at a better time, considering the way sector was struggling to hold up against an outright obsolete structure. Now, while this dynamic was fortunately altered on the back of several new-age ideas, the medtech revolution will still continue to scale up in one capacity or the other. One recent funding, markedly enough, should only get the stated pattern to become stronger moving forward.
Replay, a company developing a suite of technologies that could overcome capacity limitations of adeno-associated viruses used for genetic medicines delivery, has successfully secured over $55 million in seed financing. Led by KKR & Co. and OMX Ventures, the round saw further participation coming from the likes of Artis Ventures, Lansdowne Partners, SALT, DeciBio Ventures, and Axial. According to certain reports, the newly-raised cash will be dedicated towards the enhancement of the company’s synHSV technology, which can carry 30 times more DNA payload than the usual adeno-associated virus (AAV) setup. Talk about how the company manages the said operation, it goes down an anomalous route by using an engineered herpes simplex virus. The idea is that, if all the pieces fall into place, the technique will enable us big time in regards to producing off-the-shelf therapies.
“Replay’s mission is to create a world-leading company that develops and owns the tools to reprogram biology by writing and delivering big DNA; we believe these capabilities will unlock the largest untapped opportunity in medicine. Replay has tremendous entrepreneurial experience within the Company, as well as a team of seasoned industry players to guide the development of the platform technologies and product companies to bring new treatments to patients,” said Kugan Sathiyanandarajah, the managing director at KKR.
At the moment, Replay is working with five separate synHSV branches that are all designed to bring key DNA treatments to monogenic disorders concerning areas like brain, muscle, eye, and skin.
