A UK-based start­up looks to beat Spark's Lux­tur­na at its own game with pro­gram­ma­ble cell plat­form for eye dis­ease

Spark’s Lux­tur­na made waves in 2017 when it was ap­proved to treat in­her­it­ed reti­nal degra­da­tion by re­plac­ing the mu­tat­ed RPE65 gene with a nor­mal copy. But in­stead of re­plac­ing a faulty gene to re­gain func­tion, what if sci­en­tists could re­pro­gram whole cells in vi­vo?

On Tues­day, a UK-based start­up reeled in $17 mil­lion to pur­sue just that.

Mo­gri­fy set out in 2016 to pi­o­neer a new class of in vi­vo re­pro­gram­ming ther­a­pies in oph­thal­mol­o­gy and use that same tech­nol­o­gy to trans­form the way ex vi­vo cell ther­a­pies are de­vel­oped. The com­pa­ny first closed a Se­ries A round in 2019. And now, in­vestors are tack­ing on an­oth­er $17 mil­lion, bring­ing the ex­pand­ed round to $33 mil­lion in to­tal.

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