Biotech Ochre Bio has raised $9.6M (£6.9M) in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures alongside participants from Backed VC, Apollo Health Ventures, Selvedge, Hoxton and Hermes-Epitek. The funding will be used to advance the development of Ochre Bio’s RNA therapies and expand its deep phenotyping platform to identify and validate new liver targets.
Ochre Bio was founded out of 15 years of leading liver genomics research and experience in bringing advanced therapies to market. The company is currently developing RNA medicines for chronic liver diseases and is utilising deep phenotyping technology to uncover new biological pathways. Deep phenotyping combines genetics, advanced tissue imaging, cellular genomics (single-cell and spatial sequencing), and machine learning, to study disease and gene systems at a tissue level. Ochre's 100% human focus involves the deep phenotyping of human biobanks, deep phenotyping of genetically perturbed human micro-organs (in vitro) models and the deep phenotyping of diseased human organs perfused outside of the body. This 100% human approach to data provides a distinct advantage when studying complex age-associated and chronic diseases that require more than simple single-target therapies.
By 2022, Ochre expects to have built a complete in silico human liver of over 1011 measurements to predict the effect of perturbing any gene in any major liver cell type.
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