Undecimal Bio Raises €16M for RNA Delivery

Cambridge biotech Undecimal Bio has raised €16 million to tackle a longstanding bottleneck in RNA medicines: getting therapeutic molecules into tissues beyond the liver.

What happened

The company, a spinout of Eleven Therapeutics, announced seed backing co-led by 4BIO Capital and IQ Capital. Its DELiveri research platform combines large-scale chemical screening with transformer-based machine learning to search for molecules that can transport small interfering RNA (siRNA) into specific cells. RNA interference can suppress the production of disease-related proteins by targeting the RNA instructions used to make them. However, many delivery systems accumulate in the liver, limiting the conditions that can be addressed. Undecimal is investigating chemistry intended to overcome that restriction and initially plans to focus on renovascular diseases. The company remains in research and preclinical development. No human efficacy or safety outcomes have been demonstrated.

Why it matters

Identifying the right gene to silence does not create a medicine if the RNA cannot enter the cells where that gene matters. More selective delivery could widen the range of indications suitable for RNA therapeutics. The combination of laboratory screening and model-guided optimisation may also help researchers test larger chemical spaces more efficiently than trial-and-error methods alone.

The bigger picture

RNA delivery is becoming an infrastructure opportunity for biotechnology, potentially supporting multiple drugs instead of just one proprietary treatment. The crucial evidence will be whether Undecimal's candidates reach relevant tissues safely, at useful doses, and reproduce results outside the early laboratory setting.