Daiichi Sankyo, Johnson & Johnson partner with RNA delivery startup Nosis Bio

From the article in Endpoints by Ryan Cross

Nosis Bio, a startup developing new ways to deliver RNA therapies to specific cells, has struck partnerships with two pharma companies that together could be worth more than $1.5 billion, the company told Endpoints News in an exclusive interview.

Daiichi Sankyo and Johnson & Johnson have turned to the startup for help designing gene-silencing siRNA drugs that can treat chronic diseases that affect cells outside of the liver — the organ that most RNA drug development has focused on so far.

It’s part of growing interest in expanding the reach of RNA-based medicines. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the leading siRNA company, recently announced plans to solve delivery to most major tissues by the end of the decade. And last week, the AI protein design company Gensaic announced a $354 million partnership with Novo Nordisk to help deliver siRNA to tissues beyond the liver.

Nosis co-founder and CEO Jim Martineau told Endpoints in an interview that his company has already demonstrated cell-targeted delivery, via intravenous infusion or subcutaneous injection in mice and monkeys, to six tissues outside of the liver, including the central nervous system, heart, kidney, lungs, skeletal muscle and small intestine.

Martineau wouldn’t disclose which cells are the focus of the Daiichi Sankyo and J&J partnerships or name specific diseases that the companies are interested in. He said that Nosis will do “the enormity of the upfront discovery work.” But he didn’t say how much of the $1.5 billion the startup could see in near-term versus future licensing payments or share the precise breakdown of how much would come from each of the two pharma companies.

“In both cases, the companies understand that they have had this huge unmet need to access challenging targets that are not accessible by existing modalities. They believe in the promise of RNA therapeutics,” Martineau said. “But pharma has really been limited by delivery technologies.”

Finding a foothold

Nosis was founded in 2021 but has kept a low profile until now. The Berkeley, CA-based startup has raised $13 million so far, Martineau told Endpoints.

Its investors include Madrona Ventures, KdT Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and AlleyCorp. Notable angel investors include Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, who co-founded Flatiron Health, where Martineau used to work.

Nosis has developed an atlas of almost 3,000 receptors across more than 500 cell types that could provide footholds for delivering genetic medicines to certain cell types.

“Most genetic medicine companies in the siRNA space are focused on the liver, it’s one [that has a] receptor we know how to get to, and our thesis was that there is so much more than that,” Cain McClary, managing partner and founder of KdT Ventures, told Endpoints.

Single-cell RNA sequencing data are key to that process. The company partly relies on public data, including in human cell atlases, but also has proprietary data from its own experiments and through its pharma partnerships.

Once Nosis has identified a good target that is expressed only in certain cell types, or possibly only amidst a certain disease, it uses AI to design a small protein that can latch onto that receptor and shuttle the siRNA drug, also designed with AI, to its target.

“In many chronic diseases, there are inflammatory pathways that create an enormous amount of overexpression that create opportunities for new pathways for delivery,” Martineau said.