Accelerator Corporation is at it again. The Seattle-based biotech investment and development firm has formed the Mirina Corporation, which will focus on developing drugs using Minor Groove Binder technology to affect cellular processes involving microRNAs. MicroRNA is one of two types of RNAi found in all human cells and affects how genes are turned off and on (siRNA is the other). The technology has been licensed from Nanogen. The syndicate of investors leading the Series A investment in Mirina included Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Amgen Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and WRF Capital.
"Mirina is the ninth company in which we have invested at Accelerator," said Accelerator CEO Carl Weissman, "and it is the first based upon spinning technology out of an established publicly-traded biotechnology company. We are very excited to be entering the interesting area of nucleic acid-based therapeutics and believe that the Nanogen MGB technology should confer a significant advantage and differentiation to this effort." Other Accelerator companies include VieVax, VLST and Allozyne.
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