Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Dicerna names its scientific advisory board

By Mass High Tech Staff

RNAi interference company Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. has formed a scientific advisory board to help direct the company’s development of RNAi-based therapies with the Dicer enzyme.

Members of the SAB include the following:

• John Rossi, chairman of the SAB -and scientific co-founder of Dicerna
• Mark Behlke, scientific co-founder of Dicerna
• Carlo Croce, professor of internal medicine and director of the human cancer genetics program at The Ohio State University
• Frank McCormick, distinguished professor and director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Cancer Research Institute
• Thomas M. Roberts, professor of pathology, Harvard Medical School, and co-chair of the department of cancer biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Watertown-based Dicerna announced in July it had landed an $8.4 million second tranche of Series A venture capital, bringing its total financing to $21.4 million. The tranche was led by new investor Abingworth LLP of London and Waltham. Previous investors Oxford Bioscience Partners of Boston, and Skyline Ventures of Waltham and Palo Alto, Calif., also participated in the financing.

The company also revealed its focus areas in July: oncology, metabolic diseases and hepatitis C. CEO Jim Jensen said the company would initially target “low-hanging fruit,” such as solid tumors, diabetes and hepatitis C with the drugs it develops in-house, because the genes causing those conditions have already been identified.

Dicerna moved from Cambridge to its current location in Watertown last month, where it houses facilities for in vitro and in vivo animal testing, as well as for bio-analytics. The company, with about 13 employees now, also plans to grow to between 25 and 30 people.