Firm to obtain $10m for menopause-targeting therapies primarily based on cell engineering platform developed in collaboration with George Church.
Girls’s well being biotech Gameto has been chosen by the US Authorities’s Superior Analysis Tasks Company for Well being (ARPA-H) initiative to be a part of its Sprint for Women’s Health initiative. The corporate will obtain $10 million over the following two years to additional develop its therapeutic growth program for menopause, Ameno.
The brand new $110 million ARPA-H initiative seeks to handle crucial unmet challenges in ladies’s well being by supporting revolutionary well being options, significantly those who uniquely or disproportionately have an effect on ladies. The funding will assist Gameto advance its Ameno program, presently in its preclinical levels, towards human medical trials.
By 2025, menopause is anticipated to have an effect on over a billion ladies globally, and its related signs can result in severe well being situations comparable to osteoporosis, heart problems and dementia.
“Ovaries lose perform sooner than the remainder of the physique, resulting in many ladies spending two thirds of their lives coping with a level of infertility, and one third of their lives in a stage of poor well being post-menopause,” stated Dina Radenkovic, co-founder and CEO of Gameto, who leads the corporate alongside Chairman Martin Varsavsky, founding father of North America’s largest fertility community, Prelude Fertility.
Based mostly on the assumption that menopause is just not an unavoidable organic course of, Gameto is working to disassociate the negative effects of menopause from the lack of fertility. The corporate’s cell remedy strategy, developed in collaboration with Harvard Medical Faculty professor and famend geneticist George Church, goals to focus on menopause at its root trigger.
Gameto’s Ameno program goals to alleviate the debilitating results of menopause by way of a cell-based remedy designed to revive hormonal stability. The remedy is meant to tune hormone ranges to particular person wants by responding to alerts from the mind and ovaries, serving to to mitigate the long-term well being dangers related to post-menopausal situations.
Whereas Gameto’s lead program, Fertilo, goals to handle infertility, the ARPA-H funding means the corporate is now formally increasing its focus into menopause with its Ameno program. The corporate will obtain milestone-based funds over the following two years as the corporate achieves analysis and growth targets.
“With this award, we’ve adequate sources to additional apply our cell engineering know-how and produce ahead a program for girls going by means of menopause, an space with even fewer therapy choices,” added Radenkovic.
Earlier this 12 months, Gameto efficiently closed a $33 million Series B financing round, led by Two Sigma Ventures and RA Capital, to advance its reproductive well being packages, bringing its whole funding to $73 million. The corporate additionally secured a $20 million Series A round in 2022.
Final 12 months, Gameto revealed it had licensed technology developed in Church’s lab that enabled the event a dwelling, totally human ovarian organoid that helps egg cell maturation, develops follicles and secretes intercourse hormones.
