Mantra Bio

Mantra Bio is a biotechnology company established in 2016 with a focus on developing targeted therapeutics by engineering exosomes. The company was co-founded by Alex Mok, who serves as CEO, Katie Planey, the Chief Technical Officer, and Terry Gaige, the VP of Automation. Mok's background includes roles at life sciences companies like Cellasic Corp., Millipore Sigma, and Fluidigm, with a degree in bioengineering from UC Berkeley. Planey holds engineering degrees from Yale and Stanford, specializing in biomedical informatics, while Gaige has a background in mechanical engineering from MIT. The company's inception was supported by the Illumina Accelerator, a program for early-stage genomics startups.

Mantra Bio's core technology is the REVEAL™ platform, which integrates computational biology, lab automation, and machine learning to design and optimize Targeted Exosome Vehicles (TEVs). This platform works to solve challenges in drug delivery by using exosomes—natural lipid nanovesicles that act as intercellular messengers—to deliver therapeutic payloads like gene and RNA therapeutics to specific cells and tissues with potentially low immunogenicity. The process involves designing TEVs in silico, bioengineering them with tissue-targeting agents, loading them with a drug cargo, and then optimizing them in a continuous dry-lab-to-wet-lab cycle. This methodology allows the company to rapidly generate and test numerous candidates for various therapeutic applications.

The company's business model is centered on building a proprietary therapeutic pipeline and pursuing partnerships with other firms. Mantra Bio's revenue generation will likely depend on the successful clinical development and commercialization of its therapeutic candidates and collaboration agreements. The firm has secured significant funding, including a $5 million seed round in 2017, a $25 million Series A in 2020, and a $9 million Series A-2 in 2023, bringing its total funding to over $39 million. Key investors include 8VC, Viking Global Investors, Illumina, Box Group, and Samsung Securities. The company is advancing preclinical programs targeting ophthalmic diseases and is also exploring a novel vaccine for infectious diseases. However, recent developments in mid-2024 indicate a significant shift, with reports of a complete facility closure and the auctioning of its research and development laboratory assets.

Keywords: exosome engineering, targeted drug delivery, REVEAL platform, Targeted Exosome Vehicles, TEVs, computational biology, therapeutic pipeline, ophthalmology therapeutics, infectious disease vaccines, preclinical discovery, biomanufacturing, genomics, lipid nanovesicles, cell-to-cell communication, gene therapeutics, RNA therapeutics, Alex Mok, Katie Planey, Terry Gaige, Illumina Accelerator