Cambridge Start-Up Launches with $59 Million in Financing

Triplet Therapeutics has launched today with $59 million in financing including a $49 million Series A financing led by MPM Capital and Pfizer Ventures U.S. LLC, the venture capital arm of Pfizer. Atlas Venture, which co-founded and seeded Triplet with a $10 million investment, also participated in the Series A alongside Invus, Partners Innovation Fund and Alexandria Venture Investments. Triplet is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass.

Triplet was founded in 2018 by Nessan Bermingham, Ph.D., a serial biotech entrepreneur and venture partner at Atlas Venture, along with Atlas Venture and Andrew Fraley, Ph.D., to pursue a transformative approach to developing treatments for repeat expansion disorders, a group of more than 40 known genetic diseases associated with expanded DNA nucleotide repeats. A significant body of human genetic evidence has identified that one central pathway, known as the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway, drives onset and progression of this group of disorders, which include Huntington’s disease, myotonic dystrophy and various spinocerebellar ataxias.

Triplet is developing antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) development candidates to precisely knock down key components of the DDR pathway that drive repeat expansion. This approach operates upstream of current approaches in development, targeting the fundamental driver of these diseases. By precisely reducing activity of select DDR targets, Triplet’s approach is designed to halt onset and progression across a wide range of repeat expansion disorders.

The company will use the Series A funds to progress its first development candidates into IND-enabling studies, as well as to advance natural history studies to inform its clinical development plan and contribute to the scientific understanding of repeat expansion disorders.

“More than 40 repeat expansion disorders have been identified, and most of these diseases are severe with limited to no treatment options,” said Jean-François Formela, M.D., partner at Atlas Venture and Board Chair of Triplet. “We have built Triplet to fundamentally transform what has been the treatment strategy for these diseases up to now.” (Source: Business Wire Website, 17 December 17, 2019)