Stylus Medicine secures US$85M to advance genetic therapies

USA—Stylus Medicine, a biotechnology company focused on developing transformative in vivo genetic medicines, has officially emerged from stealth with US$85 million in funding.

This total includes a recent US$45 million Series A extension round featuring participation from RA Capital Management, Khosla Ventures, and six new investors such as Chugai Venture Fund, Eli Lilly and Company, and Johnson & Johnson Innovation—JJDC.

This follows an earlier $40 million Series A investment from founding investors RA Capital and Khosla Ventures.

The company plans to use this capital to advance its innovative platform and pipeline of in vivo therapeutic programs.

Stylus’ technology uniquely combines sequence-specific genome integration with cell-targeted lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery.

Central to their platform are proprietary therapeutic-grade recombinases designed to efficiently and precisely encode large, multi-kilobase genetic payloads with high fidelity.

This approach enables durable, flexible, and scalable in vivo cell engineering, overcoming key limitations of traditional ex vivo cell therapy manufacturing and broadening access to genetic medicines.

Emile Nuwaysir, Ph.D., Stylus’ chairman and CEO, explained that the company was founded to rethink how genetic medicines reach patients.

He highlighted three defining features of their ideal therapy: safe and targeted in vivo delivery, specific genome integration, and durable expression of therapeutic payloads.

By eliminating the complexities associated with ex vivo and viral manufacturing, Stylus aims to simplify patient treatment and bring life-saving genetic medicines to all patients in need, initially focusing on CAR-T therapies for cancer.

Joshua Resnick, M.D., partner at RA Capital and president of its healthcare incubator Raven, which co-founded Stylus in 2022 alongside Khosla Ventures, emphasized the company’s elegant system and strong leadership.

He noted Stylus has the right team, capital, and strategy to succeed, with the potential to dramatically expand the availability of life-changing therapies through a scalable and efficient clinical and commercial model.

The leadership team includes Dr. Nuwaysir, who brings over 25 years of executive experience in cell and gene therapy, having led multiple biotech companies from startup to acquisition, including BlueRock Therapeutics and Ensoma.

Jason Fontenot, Ph.D., Stylus’ chief scientific officer, has over two decades of scientific leadership in cell and gene therapy, with prior roles at Sangamo Therapeutics and Juno Therapeutics.

 His research in immune cell biology underpins the company’s technology.

According to Nessan Bermingham, Ph.D., operating partner at Khosla Ventures, while genetic medicines have enormous therapeutic potential, their widespread use has been limited by manufacturing and delivery challenges, especially for large genetic payloads.

Stylus’ bold vision and exceptional leadership position it well to overcome these barriers and bring transformative therapies to millions of patients.

Stylus’ board features industry veterans and scientific innovators, including Dr. Nuwaysir, Dr. Bermingham, John Gustofson of Chugai Venture Fund, Patrick Hsu, Ph.D. (Scientific Founder), and Joshua Resnick.

 The scientific founders also include renowned academics from Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Patrick Hsu, Ph.D., explained that recombinases are ideal enzymes for integrating large genetic payloads into the genome.

Stylus’ approach leverages a proprietary library of engineered recombinases optimized through computational design and machine learning.

This unlocks new therapeutic possibilities by enabling precise, large-scale gene insertion in vivo.

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