Take­da Ven­tures and Or­biMed have helped pump $61 mil­lion in­to a New York biotech join­ing the rush to dra­mat­i­cal­ly ex­pand the CRISPR tool kit.

One cru­cial com­po­nent in the CRISPR gene edit­ing process is a nu­cle­ase that cuts the tar­get DNA once it’s led there by a guide RNA. Cas9 is the most well known and broad­ly used among them, al­though re­searchers have been com­ing up with a va­ri­ety of al­ter­na­tives. The one that Emen­do Bio­ther­a­peu­tics will be ad­vanc­ing with its new fund­ing is dubbed OM­NI.

Their class of “op­ti­mized” en­zymes, ac­cord­ing to Emen­do, opens a new lev­el of pre­ci­sion un­at­tain­able with old­er ap­proach­es.

“For ex­am­ple, to treat dom­i­nant in­di­ca­tions, one al­lele needs to be edit­ed while leav­ing the oth­er one in­tact. Cur­rent CRISPR nu­cle­as­es are not spe­cif­ic enough to do this,” the biotech wrote on its web­site. “Dom­i­nant in­di­ca­tions are the vast ma­jor­i­ty of ge­net­ic dis­eases, high­light­ing the need for a nov­el ap­proach.”

That plat­form tech has at­tract­ed Take­da to a part­ner­ship in which Emen­do will syn­the­size OM­NI nu­cle­as­es for two undis­closed tar­gets. In re­turn, the Japan­ese phar­ma gi­ant agreed to par­tic­i­pate in this new fi­nanc­ing along­side Or­biMed Ad­vi­sors, Or­biMed Is­rael Part­ners and AnGes.

Tokyo and Os­a­ka-based AnGes was re­spon­si­ble for $50 mil­lion of the raise, up­ping its stake in Emen­do to 32%, ac­cord­ing to a fil­ing last month.

“Mak­ing Emen­do an af­fil­i­at­ed com­pa­ny of AnGes will as­sist us in the de­vel­op­ment of bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals through genome edit­ing, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to fur­ther ex­pand our­de­vel­op­ment pipeline as the fourth pil­lar of our op­er­a­tions af­ter HGF gene ther­a­py,nu­cle­ic-acid med­i­cines, and DNA vac­cines,” AnGes wrote.

Emen­do, which has an R&D op­er­a­tion in Is­rael, is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton and Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal on its lead pro­gram se­vere con­gen­i­tal neu­trope­nia. Oth­er pro­grams in pri­ma­ry im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy, bone mar­row fail­ure, in­her­it­ed eye dis­ease and can­cer are al­so at­tached to pres­ti­gious aca­d­e­m­ic part­ners.

So­cial im­age: Take­da

The average level of investment required for a biotech start-up to succeed is increasing every year, elevating the pressure even further on venture capital to make smart financial investments. Financial investment alone, however, does not always guarantee that exciting innovations can be transformed into real businesses that make a meaningful difference to patients.

Beyond just capital

At Astellas Venture Management (AVM) – a wholly-owned venture capital organization within Astellas, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area – capital is just one of the ingredients we offer to add value to our biotechnology investments and partnerships. We generally take a strategic investor approach for companies in our invested portfolio, providing access to expertise, technology and/or resources in addition to the injection of finance. An equity investment from AVM can include access to Astellas’ research and development (R&D) capabilities and expertise, and a global network of partner academic institutions and biotechnology companies, to help advance and accelerate the start-up’s innovation.

Unum $UMRX is working its way through a survival plan of sorts.

After getting hit with a trio of FDA holds in its brief public history and triggering its second pivot to a new lead drug program while laying off 60% of the staff, the troubled penny stock biotech Unum Therapeutics has hatched new plans to secure financial backing while lining up a go-forward strategy for the company.

First, Lincoln Park Capital Fund has agreed to buy up to $25 million of the long-suffering stock, as Unum directs. And the executive team — led by CEO Chuck Wilson — has put everything on the table for consideration: a sale, acquisition, merger, licensing deal, you name it. The ACTR707 program, meanwhile, is being formally wrapped up — their second failed lead program.