A new biotechnology company in Santa Fe is raising money for a platform designed to battle disease.
The early-stage startup, called Spartina Biotechnologies, uses what are called exosomes to deliver genetic material and proteins to cells in the body. This helps to combat infection. Spartina Biotechnologies' technology packages RNA, a type of genetic molecule, into exosomes. Those exosomes are modified to bind to and deliver the RNA to certain cells, inhibiting viruses in those cells from reproducing.
"This will effectively act like an antibiotic to knock out the infection," cofounder and CEO Paul Laur told Business First in an interview.
Spartina is currently attempting to raise an investment round of $1.5 million, which will allow the company to work through pre-clinical trials. It eventually hopes to partner with a pharmaceutical company to take the platform to clinical trials and onto production.
To date, Spartina has raised about $750,000 with money from angel and other types of investors, Laur said.
The startup was founded by Laur and Richard Sayre in 2015 with the aim of modifying the DNA of a type of prairie grass. Laur and Sayre later went to work for Pebble Labs, which uses RNA to battle diseases in plants and invertebrates.
But Spartina's exosomes allow RNA to bypass the "adaptive immune system" in mammals, Laur said.
Adaptive immune responses work to "destroy invading pathogens and any toxic molecules they produce," according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Laur said he left Pebble Labs in January 2021 after relaunching Spartina in September 2020. A release from the New Mexico Consortium notes that Spartina's technology could be used to address Covid-19, however, Laur said the platform could be used for "all kinds of bioactive molecules."
Spartina has an office in Santa Fe primarily due to the Santa Fe Business Incubator, according to Laur. The startup is also working under a New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program initiative with Los Alamos National Laboratory to model molecules for exosomes with supercomputers, he added.
Laur said the company has a couple of scientists working at the Santa Fe Business Incubator working to prove the tech, and Keara Sauber is the startup's president.
