Cambridge, UK-based ViaNautis Bio has secured investment from SCI Ventures to expand its non-viral genetic medicine delivery platform into chronic spinal cord injury (CSI). Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.
SCI Ventures describes itself as a mission-driven fund backed by clinical centres and research foundations focused on neuro-restoration and paralysis. The fund cited ViaNautis' targeting capabilities as the primary rationale, noting that delivery to the injury site remains among the most significant barriers to translating SCI research into therapy. The investment adds to ViaNautis' existing backing, which includes 4BIO Capital, BGF, and UCB Ventures, who co-led the company's USD 25 million Series A round in November 2023, alongside participation from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Eli Lilly and Company, and existing investors Origin Capital, Meltwind, and O2H. In October 2024, ViaNautis also signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Lilly to apply the polyNaut platform to novel genetic medicine products, under which the company received an upfront payment with the potential for research-based milestones.
ViaNautis was spun out of University College London in 2018 by co-founders Dr Francesca Crawford, Dr Denis Cecchin, and Professor Giuseppe Battaglia. Its core technology, the polyNaut platform, uses targeted polymer nanovesicles (tPNVs) that are conjugated with nanobodies to enable cell-specific delivery of nucleic acid payloads — including DNA and mRNA — to defined cell populations. The company said the platform is designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and to deliver regenerative genetic payloads while avoiding the immunogenicity and payload constraints associated with viral vectors, with SCI being explored as a new indication.
Beyond SCI, ViaNautis maintains a pipeline spanning CNS disorders, immunology, oncology, and respiratory disease. A programme in cystic fibrosis, supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, is advancing through the company's pipeline. The company has also presented preclinical data on the use of CD8-targeted tPNVs for in vivo CAR-T cell generation. The SCI programme remains at an early stage, with the investment intended to fund exploratory and platform application work in the indication.
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