Sensible Biotechnologies (“Sensible”), a biotechnology company developing a first-of-its-kind platform for naturally modified mRNA medicines, today announced that it has secured $47 million in financing to advance and scale its integrated mRNA technology. The financing includes a Series A and up to $20 million in non-dilutive funding from the Government of Slovakia and the European Union.
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Photo caption: Marian Kupculak, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Sensible Biotechnologies (left), and Miroslav “Miro” Gasparek, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (right). Photo credit: Sensible.
The Series A included participation from new investors OTB Ventures and In-Q-Tel, alongside existing investors Recode Ventures, Isomer Capital, Y Combinator, Backed VC, Kaya VC, Civilization Ventures and BlueYard Capital, as well as the family office of Christoph Huber, Co-Founder of BioNTech, Tim Garnett, former Chief Medical Officer of Eli Lilly, and other individual investors.
The funding will support the development and scale-up of Sensible’s VECTOR™ (Versatile Engine for Cell-based Therapeutic Optimisation of RNA) platform, expansion of its AI-enabled mRNA design and automated high-throughput screening capabilities, and development of clinical-grade manufacturing capabilities.
“mRNA transformed vaccines, but we believe its greatest potential lies in therapeutics,” said Miroslav Gasparek, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Sensible Biotechnologies. “The field still relies largely on synthetic manufacturing technology developed more than 40 years ago. We are taking a fundamentally different approach, using living cells to produce naturally modified mRNA while reducing the cost and supply-chain constraints of conventional production. With this financing, we can scale our platform and expand mRNA into therapeutic applications requiring high or repeated dosing that have historically been limited by cost.”
While mRNA has transformed vaccines, its broader therapeutic potential remains largely unrealized, due in part to the limitations of synthetic production. Sensible is taking a different approach by making mRNA in living cells. Sensible’s VECTOR platform integrates computational and AI-enabled sequence optimization, high-throughput screening and proprietary engineered eukaryotic cells to design and manufacture naturally modified mRNA. The Company’s PromPT™ technology captures and protects mRNA inside cells before it is purified for therapeutic use.
By harnessing the natural machinery of living cells, Sensible’s platform is designed to produce naturally modified mRNA with reduced immunogenicity and high protein expression while avoiding double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) contamination, a key source of unwanted immune activation. In external evaluations, Sensible’s platform demonstrated the ability to produce cell-made mRNA with no detectable dsRNA contamination, reduced cytokine activation and higher protein expression compared with synthetic mRNA in human immune-cell assays.
Integrating design and manufacturing within a single platform also has the potential to reduce the complexity and supply-chain constraints of conventional mRNA production. By using engineered living cells, Sensible aims to reduce reliance on specialized raw materials and manufacturing inputs, enabling more scalable production and expanding mRNA into therapeutic applications requiring higher or repeated dosing.
In connection with the financing, Dr. Vishal Gulati, FMedSci, Managing Partner at Recode Ventures, and Joel Schoppig, Partner at Oxford Science Enterprises, will join Sensible’s Board of Directors alongside Miroslav Gasparek, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, and Dr. Marian Kupculak, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder.
“The promise of computational drug design depends on connecting it to biology and the practical work of making a medicine. How mRNA is made can shape how it behaves, so manufacturing matters from the very start of developing a treatment. Sensible brings design and cell-based production together, giving the team an opportunity to improve both the performance of mRNA and the economics of making it,” said Joel Schoppig, Partner at Oxford Science Enterprises and Board Member at Sensible. “We led this round because we believe in the team’s ability to build a company that helps pharmaceutical partners develop a broader range of mRNA medicines. With this investment, Sensible can advance toward clinical-grade production and expand the pharmaceutical partnerships that will drive its commercial growth.”
“The next wave of mRNA medicines reaches far beyond vaccines: in vivo CAR-T, gene editing, and cancer immunotherapy. Yet much of that promise is capped by the limits of today’s mRNA design and manufacturing. Sensible has rebuilt the process from first principles. Its cell-based platform brings design, optimisation and manufacturing into a single loop, producing purer, low-immunogenicity mRNA at industrial scale. That is why we backed Sensible from its earliest round.” said Dr Vishal Gulati, FMedSci, Managing Partner at Recode Ventures and Board Member at Sensible.
“Sensible represents exactly that kind of scientific innovation that can help shape the future of medicine,” said Kamil Šaško, Minister of Health of the Slovak Republic. “Its work to develop a new generation of mRNA technologies reflects the strength of biotechnology innovation emerging from Slovakia and Europe. We are proud to support Sensible as it advances pioneering science with the potential to enable better medicines, expand the possibilities of mRNA therapeutics, and ultimately improve the lives of patients around the world. Such support is an investment Europe truly needs not only in scientific progress, but in our ability to lead the next generation of biotechnology and healthcare innovation.”
The Company has established collaborations to support the validation and scale-up of its technology, such as a strategic partnership with Sartorius to scale its cell-based platform toward clinical-grade mRNA manufacturing and additional partnerships with leading technology companies. Sensible’s cell-based circular RNA manufacturing technology has also been published in Nature Biotechnology and Cell Chemical Biology.
About Sensible Biotechnologies
Sensible Biotechnologies is unlocking the next generation of mRNA medicines. The Company is developing VECTOR™, a first-of-its-kind integrated platform that combines computational mRNA design and optimization with proprietary cell-based manufacturing to produce naturally modified, high-quality mRNA. By harnessing the natural machinery of living cells, Sensible aims to overcome key limitations of conventional synthetic mRNA and enable therapeutic applications across cancer, genetic medicines, protein replacement therapies, antibodies and cell therapies. For more information, visit www.sensible.bio.
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