Aim­ing to har­ness the pow­er of mi­to­chon­dria, a Japan­ese start­up nets new fund­ing

One of the ba­sic lessons in sci­ence class is that mi­to­chon­dria act as the pow­er­house of the cell. But LU­CA Sci­ence, a Japan­ese biotech, is look­ing to take it a step fur­ther.

The com­pa­ny is look­ing to har­ness the pow­er of mi­to­chon­dria to even­tu­al­ly cre­ate ther­a­pies for or­gan and tis­sue re­pair, and on Mon­day it closed a $30.3 mil­lion Se­ries B. Helmed by Rick Tsai, a Mer­ck and Al­ler­gan vet, LU­CA aims to re­search the mi­to­chon­dria’s po­ten­tial in ob­stet­rics, res­pi­ra­to­ry, car­dio­vas­cu­lar, CNS, im­munol­o­gy and on­col­o­gy spaces.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER