BOSTON — Strand Therapeutics has raised $153 million in Series B financing to support the continued development of its next-generation, programmable mRNA therapies, the company announced Tuesday. The round was led by Kinnevik and joined by a number of prominent new investors, including Regeneron Ventures, ICONIQ, Amgen Ventures, and LG Technology Ventures, alongside returning backers such as Eli Lilly, FPV Ventures, and Playground Global.
With this latest infusion, Strand has now raised over $250 million to date. As part of the financing, Kinnevik’s Ala Alenazi, Ph.D., will join the company’s Board of Directors.
The funding will fuel further advancement of Strand’s lead clinical candidate, STX-001, a tumor-targeted, self-replicating mRNA therapy engineered to express interleukin-12 (IL-12) directly within the tumor microenvironment. Early Phase 1 data from patients with advanced solid tumors—presented at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting—showed promising outcomes, including complete responses, durable disease stabilization, and a favorable safety profile in patients resistant to prior treatments.
“We believe programmable RNA is the next frontier in therapeutics, and Strand has built the leading platform to unlock it,” said Christian Scherrer, Head of Health and Bio at Kinnevik. “Their early clinical data is outstanding, and the systemic delivery capability has the potential to reshape how we treat disease, starting with cancer.”
Strand is also progressing STX-003, a first-in-class systemically administered mRNA therapy designed to selectively target tumors while avoiding off-target organs like the liver. Preclinical data presented earlier this year at the AACR and ASGCT meetings demonstrated the candidate’s ability to deliver IL-12 to tumors with high precision following systemic administration—another milestone for the field of genetic circuit-controlled therapies.
“Now is an exciting period of expansion for our clinical work and pipeline,” said Strand CEO and Co-founder Jake Becraft, Ph.D. “We’re seeing systemic immune activation and anti-tumor responses, including in non-injected lesions, across multiple tumor types. This is early but strong validation of our platform’s potential.”
Strand’s platform is based on proprietary mRNA constructs, including self-replicating and circular RNA technologies, combined with programmable genetic logic circuits. This allows for controlled, localized therapeutic activity—offering a new level of precision for treating cancer and, potentially, other serious diseases.
The company’s approach aims to transform the mRNA therapeutic landscape by making these powerful treatments scalable, more accessible, and capable of addressing unmet needs in oncology and beyond.
