• Sensible Biotechnologies aims to build a cell-based platform for cost-efficient and scalable manufacturing of high-quality mRNA.
• Proceeds will be used to optimize and scale Sensible's mRNA manufacturing platform and mRNA design capabilities.
• The pre-seed funding led by BlueYard Capital follows Sensible's announcement of a strategic partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA).

OXFORD, England, April 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sensible Biotechnologies, Inc., an mRNA platform company, has announced a $4.2mn pre-seed round to accelerate the development of its cell-based platform for cost-efficient manufacturing of high-quality mRNA. The company's technology aims to overcome the limitations of current mRNA manufacturing processes, ensuring scalable and cost-effective production of mRNA with high quality.

The pre-seed round was led by BlueYard Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Amino Collective, Civilization Ventures, Recode Health Ventures, and ZAKA. In addition to that, Florian Schuster, Jason C. Foster and other life science executives are investing as angels. A DLA Piper team led by Matthew F. Gorra and Brendan Kelly represented Sensible Biotechnologies and advised on the transaction.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the immense potential of mRNA technology to bring novel mRNA-based therapies. However, the current, cell-free mRNA manufacturing method called In Vitro Transcription (IVT) cannot provide mRNA with sufficient quality for many of its core clinical applications. In addition to that, mRNA produced via IVT requires the use of expensive and proprietary enzymes and does not scale to large reaction volumes. Sensible Biotechnologies' cell-based platform will aim to provide a scalable and affordable production of high-quality mRNA to expand the potential of the mRNA technology to novel modalities.

"This funding will enable us to advance the development of our cell-based mRNA manufacturing platform and to unlock the full potential of mRNA technology in life-saving therapies, while strengthening the robustness of the mRNA supply chain. We are thrilled to be backed by BlueYard Capital and its co-investors and build Sensible Biotechnologies with their support," said Miroslav Gasparek, the CEO and Co-Founder of Sensible Biotechnologies.

"Sensible Biotechnologies is on a mission to unlock the full potential of mRNA and its clinical applications," said Jason D. Whitmire, Co-Founder and General Partner at BlueYard Capital. "We are excited to support Sensible's work at the intersection of biology and technology, which has the potential to disrupt the status quo in mRNA manufacturing and create a vertically integrated mRNA platform."

This pre-seed funding follows Sensible's announcement of a strategic partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks, which was announced earlier this week. Sensible will utilize Ginkgo's capabilities to accelerate the development of Sensible's mRNA platform.

About Sensible Biotechnologies

Sensible Biotechnologies is building a cell-based platform for the production of high-quality mRNA. Sensible's platform eliminates the major bottlenecks in the mRNA production process in an effort to unlock the full potential of mRNA technology for the next generation of therapeutics and vaccines. Sensible aims to become an integral part of the global biomanufacturing infrastructure and biosecurity framework. Sensible Biotechnologies is based in Oxford, United Kingdom, and in Bratislava, Slovakia. For further information, visit www.sensible.bio, and follow us on Twitter @sensible_bio.

About BlueYard Capital

BlueYard backs founders at the earliest stages building the interconnected elements that can become the fabric of our future. A future where markets are open and decentralized, where we have solved our largest planetary challenges, where knowledge and data is liberated and humanity can live long and prosper.

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