Tenaya Therapeutics Grabs $92M

Tenaya Therapeutics, a company with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver curative therapies that target the underlying causes of heart disease, today announced the successful completion of a $92 million Series B financing.

The financing round was led by Casdin Capital and included GV, The Column Group, and additional undisclosed new and existing investors. Tenaya has raised $142 million since its founding by scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in October 2016.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance and to expand Tenaya's pipeline and to strengthen the science, capabilities, and intellectual property that provide the foundation for Tenaya's multi-modality product platforms – Cellular Regeneration, Gene Therapy, and Precision Medicine.

"We are now well-resourced to build on our capabilities in research and manufacturing, and to accelerate the development of our lead gene therapy and small molecule projects for both orphan and prevalent heart diseases towards the clinic," said Faraz Ali, Chief Executive Officer of Tenaya. "We are pleased to have a group of experienced private and public investors led by Casdin Capital and The Column Group who support the potential for Tenaya's science to transform the treatment of heart failure, the leading cause of death in the world."

In connection with the Series B round, Eli Casdin, Chief Investment Officer, Casdin Capital, will join Tenaya's Board of Directors, and Anthony Philippakis, M.D., Ph.D., Venture Partner, GV, will join as Board Observer.

"Tenaya is building a new type of company that views heart disease through the lens of human genetics and that is advancing a diverse set of therapeutic tools to correct it," said Mr. Casdin. "It is a unique company in the field of cardiovascular disease, built on a world-class scientific foundation and driven by a growing team of entrepreneurs and drug developers. We look forward to being a supportive partner in the company's important and exciting future."

About Tenaya's Three Product Platforms for Heart Disease
Tenaya is advancing first-in-class product candidates from three separate platforms – Cellular Regeneration, Gene Therapy, and Precision Medicine. The Cellular Regeneration platform uses novel adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors to deliver proprietary transcription factors that can drive in vivo reprogramming of resident cardiac fibroblasts into cardiomyocytes, with an initial focus on acute and chronic injury following a myocardial infarction. The Gene Therapy platform uses AAV vectors for the targeted delivery and expression of therapeutic payloads to specific cells in the heart, with an initial focus on the treatment of genetically defined cardiomyopathies. The Precision Medicine platform uses isogenic iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes as human disease models to identify and validate new heart failure targets and to screen for therapeutic compounds, with an initial focus on small molecules for the treatment of several genetically defined dilated cardiomyopathies.

About Tenaya Therapeutics, Inc.
Tenaya Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver potentially curative treatments that target the underlying causes of heart disease. Tenaya is advancing multiple candidates from three product platforms – Cellular Regeneration, Gene Therapy, and Precision Medicine. Headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Tenaya was founded by world-leading scientists from the Gladstone Institute's Cardiovascular Division and from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. For more information, please visit www.tenayatherapeutics.com.