Ochre Bio raises $30 million Series A financing

Oxford, UK-based start-up Ochre Bio, an innovator in chronic liver disease drug development, yesterday announced the successful close of $30 million in Series A financing.

Proceeds of the funding will support the development of first candidates for investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies, as well as expand discovery and RNA chemistry capabilities to address a wider set of serious liver-related diseases. They will also be used for additional capabilities to create one the world’s fastest liver R&D pipelines. In a matter of days, Ochre says it can identify a novel target, synthesize an RNA therapy, and test it in a human liver.

“We realized that a challenge in tackling liver disease, as in a lot of chronic diseases, is the lack of good models,” said Jack O’Meara, Ochre chief executive, adding: “We can solve liver disease in mice but we haven’t been able to do it in humans yet. Animal models don’t recapitulate the disease well.”