South San Francisco-based NewLimit, a biotechnology company focused on longevity medicine, has closed a USD 435 million Series C funding round as it prepares to bring its first aging reprogramming therapy into human clinical trials.
Founders Fund led the round, joined by new investors Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, and Quiet Capital. Returning investors included Kleiner Perkins, Abstract, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Valor Equity Partners, Eli Lilly Ventures, and Human Capital, among others. The company said it plans to use the capital to advance its lead program — a prototype medicine designed to reverse cell age in old human liver cells — into first-in-human trials, which the company indicated are expected to begin next year.
According to NewLimit's operating plan, the lead program is based on lipid nanoparticle-delivered RNA medicines designed to transiently express combinations of transcription factors in aged liver cells. The initial focus is alcohol-related liver disease, a setting where aging hepatocytes lose regenerative capacity and become increasingly susceptible to injury. The company has reported identifying multiple reprogramming payloads that restore youthful function in preclinical liver models with one of those selected for further development.