Aerska raises $39M to help RNA medicines reach the brain

"For families living with neurodegenerative disease, the hardest part is not always the diagnosis. It is the slow erosion that follows: memory fading, personality shifting, independence shrinking. It unfolds quietly. First, forgotten appointments. Then repeated questions. Then moments when a familiar face no longer feels familiar. The illness does not isolate itself to one body. It rearranges the lives around it."

"Dublin-based Aerska has raised $39 million in fresh funding to battle one of the biggest scientific barriers standing between patients and meaningful treatment: getting advanced genetic medicines into the brain. The round was co-led by EQT Life Sciences and age1, two investors known for backing high-risk, high-impact biotech. Their bet is not just on a platform, but on the possibility that diseases once managed only at the margins could eventually be slowed at their root."

"Think of the brain as a house with very strict security at the door. That security system, called the blood-brain barrier, protects us from harmful substances in the blood. The problem is that it is so strict that it also blocks many medicines. So even if scientists create a smart treatment that can "turn off" a harmful gene linked to diseases like Alzheimer's, the drug often cannot physically get inside the brain cells where it needs to work."

Neurodegenerative disease progressively erodes memory, personality, and independence, profoundly affecting families as caregivers and decision-makers shoulder new responsibilities and guilt. The blood-brain barrier prevents many therapies from reaching brain cells, blocking advanced genetic medicines despite their potential to silence harmful genes. Dublin-based Aerska raised $39 million from EQT Life Sciences and age1 to develop bloodstream-delivered methods for transporting genetic treatments into the brain, avoiding invasive direct brain injections. The funding targets a platform to enable disease-modifying therapies that could slow neurodegeneration at its root rather than only managing symptoms.

Read at TNW | Deep-Tech