A San Diego biotech is tak­ing a clos­er look at the way syn­thet­ic DNA is en­gi­neered, aim­ing to po­ten­tial­ly re­vamp the decades-old process and serve as a part­ner to com­pa­nies with­out the re­sources to cre­ate the DNA them­selves.

And now they have sig­nif­i­cant in­vestor back­ing to do so. Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies closed an over­sub­scribed Se­ries A on Thurs­day morn­ing, lock­ing down $24 mil­lion in the round to ad­vance their syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy plat­form.

The big idea here start­ed more than 30 years ago, when Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies’ co-founder J. William Ef­cav­itch helped com­mer­cial­ize the first method of syn­the­siz­ing DNA through a chem­i­cal-based method at an­oth­er com­pa­ny. Though it en­abled growth in bio­phar­ma, the method uti­lized ma­te­ri­als that caused waste is­sues and dam­aged the DNA even as it pro­duced the nu­cleotides.

Not on­ly is this process cum­ber­some and ex­pen­sive, it’s still the pri­ma­ry way in which com­pa­nies cre­ate DNA for ther­a­peu­tic pur­pos­es, CEO Michael Kam­dar told End­points News. Where Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies, found­ed in 2013, hopes to step in is with a new tech­nique to syn­the­size DNA strands while cut­ting down on costs and the tox­ic waste.

Their goal is to es­sen­tial­ly cre­ate DNA in the same way the body makes it, and re­searchers have de­vel­oped a two-step, aque­ous ap­proach. It can de­liv­er high­ly-pure, se­quence-spe­cif­ic DNA on de­mand, Kam­dar said, and do so with­out a tem­plate.

It can scale to longer DNA se­quences, some­thing Kam­dar said he be­lieves can be a “game-chang­er” in the are­na. Where­as the old method can be lim­it­ed to short­er DNA strands of about 70 to 75 nu­cleotides and more nar­row ap­pli­ca­tions, Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies says their process can cre­ate strands of 150 nu­cleotides or longer.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the com­pa­ny as­pires to get to a point where their cus­tomers are ask­ing for DNA strands that are as long as genes — 1,500 nu­cleotides.

“We’re go­ing to be the ink in all the print­ers,” Kam­dar told End­points. “If a ther­a­peu­tic or biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny needs DNA to ad­vance their ef­forts in CRISPR, or ad­vance their ef­forts in CAR-T, or ad­vance their ef­forts in vac­cines, we can be the ink in that ap­proach. And then what they de­vel­op be­comes the fin­ished prod­uct that you see go­ing to pa­tients.”

There are a host of ap­pli­ca­tions for these types of long DNA, rang­ing from ther­a­peu­tics and agri­cul­ture to da­ta stor­age, Kam­dar said. Right now, though, the com­pa­ny is fo­cus­ing on its work with part­ners. Last year, Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies signed on­to a deal with Codex­is, cou­pling their syn­thet­ic DNA tech­nol­o­gy with Codex­is’ pro­tein en­gi­neer­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties. That deal has served as a sort of proof-of-con­cept, Kam­dar said, il­lus­trat­ing that the tech works to pro­duce pure, long DNA strands.

Thurs­day’s fi­nanc­ing al­so comes about a month af­ter Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies signed on to a DARPA project for DNA- and RNA-based vac­cines and ther­a­pies. Led by GE re­search, the ini­tia­tive aims to cre­ate a mo­bile, on-de­mand plat­form that can be de­ployed to re­gions ex­posed to dis­ease. Mod­er­na is al­so in­volved in the pro­gram, the gov­ern­ment says.

Next up is work­ing to­ward more part­ner­ships with biotechs, and Kam­dar says they in­tend to forge some new al­liances over the next 12 to 18 months. The com­pa­ny has seen in­ter­est from those fo­cused on gene ther­a­py, but Mol­e­c­u­lar As­sem­blies is look­ing at sev­er­al po­ten­tial ap­pli­ca­tions.

In­vestors in­volved in the raise in­clud­ed Ag­i­lent Tech­nolo­gies, iS­e­lect Fund, Codex­is, Alexan­dria Ven­ture In­vest­ments, and Arg­onau­tic Ven­tures. In ad­di­tion, LYFE Cap­i­tal joined the syn­di­cate.

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.