GEMORNA Platform Generates Novel mRNA Sequences With Superior Drug Properties

Raina Biosciences Inc., ("Raina"), an mRNA technology and therapeutics company, today announced the publication of data from its generative AI platform in Science. The data supports Raina's pioneering approach to mRNA design using its GEMORNA platform to generate novel sequences with superior drug properties over existing mRNA discovery methods. Founded by a team with deep RNA therapeutics and AI expertise, the Company's mission is to transform the mRNA-based therapeutics landscape by accelerating drug discovery timelines and opening new therapeutic areas for mRNA with best-in-class AI-designed therapeutics.

The Science article, titled, "Deep generative models design mRNA sequences with enhanced translational capacity and stability," marks a significant landmark for optimizing novel mRNAs with enhanced expression and durability to facilitate a wide range of therapeutic mRNA applications.

The article, which was published online today by the journal Science, is summarized as follows:

• Raina's GEMORNA platform designs superior linear and circular mRNA drug molecules with optimized expression levels and durability, addressing two major issues that have limited the effectiveness of mRNA-based therapeutics
• GEMORNA is highly differentiated from prior RNA language models developed for predictive tasks through its direct design of novel sequences from a near-infinite design space
• GEMORNA-generated mRNAs:
  • Elicited significantly higher immune response in mice compared to a leading commercially available mRNA vaccine sequence, potentially supporting mRNA therapeutic vaccine applications for diseases such as cancer
  • Achieved up to a 150-fold increase in human erythropoietin (hEPO) expression compared to an optimized benchmark, potentially supporting mRNA medicines for gene therapy
  • Demonstrated a 5-fold increase in CD19 CAR expression and a 2-fold improvement in durability compared to a patented benchmark, resulting in nearly 100% anti-tumor efficacy in primary human T cells, potentially supporting mRNA therapies for in vivo CAR-T

Raina's GEMORNA platform is built upon a decade of the team's foundational work in synthetic biology and artificial intelligence. We are excited to work with industry-leading pharma and biotech companies to expand the usage of mRNA-based therapeutics while we prepare to build an internal pipeline."

Jicong Cao, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Raina Biosciences, and corresponding author of the Science paper

"Raina has the potential to transform mRNA therapeutics by rapidly and reliably generating novel sequences with greater performance, precision and efficacy," said Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D., Raina's Chairman of the Board and former MIT faculty member. "The GEMORNA platform could be a sea change for biopharma companies pursuing mRNA-based medicines beyond traditional infectious disease vaccines ranging from neoantigen cancer vaccines, in vivo CARs, to gene editing or gene therapy applications."