A Seattle-based biotechnology company has secured $175 million in funding to advance its groundbreaking clinical research. Tune Therapeutics, which maintains dual headquarters in Seattle and Durham, North Carolina, will use the Series B funding to support ongoing clinical trials of its innovative epigenetic editing technology.
The company, established in 2020, is pioneering a novel approach to treating diseases by controlling gene expression without altering DNA sequences. Their first clinical trials, currently underway in New Zealand and Hong Kong, focus on treating chronic Hepatitis B, a condition affecting more than 250 million people worldwide and a leading cause of liver cancer.
“This represents an evolution in genetic medicines,” explains Akira Matsuno, co-founder and chief financial officer of Tune Therapeutics. The company’s approach targets diseases caused by gene misregulation rather than genetic mutations, addressing conditions where proteins are either overproduced or underproduced.
The technology combines targeted genetics with an “effector” mechanism that can modify gene behavior for controlled durations. The delivery system utilizes lipid nanoparticle technology, similar to that used in COVID-19 vaccines. The company has developed its proprietary genetic tuning platform, called TEMPO, which has potential applications across various health conditions.
With 80 employees split between its Seattle and Durham facilities, Tune Therapeutics builds upon research originally developed at Duke University by co-founder Charles Gersbach. The leadership team includes Matsuno, who previously served at Lyell Immunopharma and Juno Therapeutics, and Fyodor Urnov, a UC Berkeley professor and former associate director at Seattle’s Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences.
The company’s preliminary research has shown promising results in non-human primates, where their technology successfully suppressed specific genes and reduced LDL cholesterol levels, with effects lasting nearly two years from a single treatment. Beyond Hepatitis B, Tune is exploring additional liver conditions and investigating the potential to reprogram cellular identity, aiming to restore unhealthy cells to a healthy state through epigenetic editing.
Patient enrollment and treatment in the Hepatitis B trials will continue throughout 2025, though the timeline for observing results remains uncertain due to the novel nature of the technology. The company has not yet announced when U.S.-based trials might begin.
The recent funding round was spearheaded by several prominent investors, including New Enterprise Associates, Yosemite, Regeneron Ventures, and Hevolution Foundation. This investment brings Tune’s total funding to over $200 million since its inception.
This funding round stands as one of the largest for a Seattle-area startup in recent years, joining other significant health-sector investments in the Pacific Northwest, including Kestra Medical Technologies ($196 million), Borealis Biosciences ($180 million), and Outpace Bio ($144 million).
“The launch of clinical trials marks an exciting milestone not just for our company, but more importantly for patients and the entire field,” Matsuno noted, expressing hope that this development represents a significant step forward in medical treatment.
The company’s technology leverages recent advances in genomic medicine, building upon developments from the past 15 years. By combining targeted genetics with epigenetic editing capabilities, Tune Therapeutics aims to create more precise and effective treatments for a range of medical conditions, potentially offering new hope for patients with previously difficult-to-treat diseases.