Specific Biologics, a Toronto biotech company developing a gene-editing treatment for a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), has closed a US$35m Series A round. The company announced the oversubscribed financing on 2 November 2026.
Hatteras Venture Partners, a firm based in North Carolina, led the round. Lumira Ventures and adMare BioInnovations, both earlier backers, invested again. Genesys Capital, the Business Development Bank of Canada's Life Sciences Venture Fund, DeepWork Capital and Seido Capital joined as new investors. adMare gives the round's size as about C$49m. No valuation was disclosed.
“The reward, if it works here, will be spectacular.”Paul Hastings, Board Chair, Specific Biologics
What Specific Biologics is developing
The company's lead candidate, Dualase, targets ALS caused by a mutation in the C9ORF72 gene, in which a short stretch of DNA is repeated far more times than normal. There are no approved therapies for this form of the disease, the company said. Dualase is designed to cut the repeated section back down at the DNA level.
Specific Biologics says the editing system is small enough to fit into a single adeno-associated virus, a common gene-therapy carrier, so it can be delivered directly to the central nervous system. The platform can also be delivered as mRNA in lipid nanoparticles. The company says the same approach could apply to more than 40 disorders caused by similar repeat expansions.
The work so far is preclinical. In cell models taken from ALS patients, Dualase almost completely removed the harmful repeat expansion, according to the company, and in animal studies it reversed signs of the disease further down the chain without detectable editing at unintended sites.
From a Western University lab
Dualase is based on a gene-editing technique developed by David Edgell, a biochemistry professor at Western University who is the company's scientific co-founder, according to The Globe and Mail. Chief executive Brent Stead studied in the same lab and persuaded Edgell to let the company commercialise the technology, the newspaper reported.
The board includes Paul Hastings, a former chief executive of QLT, who chairs it, and Richard Glickman, the Globe reported. adMare said it and Lumira co-led the company's seed financing, without giving an amount, and that it worked with the company on a multi-year programme that tested six therapeutic targets and picked ALS as the lead. The company has not said when it was founded or how many people it employs.
What the money is for
The company said the money will take Dualase into the first group of patients in an adaptive Phase I/II trial in C9ORF72-associated ALS, with the aim of showing early proof that the therapy changes disease biomarkers. According to the Globe, Specific hopes to start its first human studies in 2028, and Stead said the company is in talks with a drug maker about a development partnership.
The Globe also reported that Canadian investors own the large majority of the company. Lumira partner Nikhil Thatte told the newspaper that gene editing has become very hard to fund in the United States, and said Specific had met each of its scientific milestones.
Company website: specificbiologics.com