Lexi Ventures

Biology is software. It has officially turned from science to engineering. Lexi Ventures is Genetic Engineering Capital. We provide seed funding for US founders writing the code of life to cure the worst diseases and build new kinds of products. lexi.vc

@OpenAI just launched GPT-Rosalind, a life-sci reasoning model. So powerful (buggy?), only 4 partners can use it yet: @Amgen, @moderna_tx, @AllenInstitute, @thermofisher. Founders in DNA, RNA, -omics, synbio can expect a shorter hypothesis-to-product loop.

Since 1990 chips are designed by code and manufactured by machines. It's starting in bio. @awscloud launched Amazon Bio Discovery: foundation models, experiment agent, integrations with @TwistBioscience, @Ginkgo for automation. No pipetting.

$155M mostly non-dilutive, royalty-backed from Oberland Capital. No equity dilution. Runway to 2029. Seven AAV gene therapy programs for inherited blindness riding on the back of an eye drop. 3/3 🧵

It works because Opus (w/ licensor partner Viatris) has a near-term commercial anchor: phentolamine eye drops for presbyopia — 128M Americans affected, Phase 3 met primary endpoint, FDA PDUFA October 2026. Future product revenue = collateral for the royalty loan. 2/3 🧵

Gene therapy has a financing problem. Programs face a "valley of death" before approval. Later-round dilution disincentivizes early investors. Opus Genetics just showed an alternative. 1/3 🧵

@databricks released AiChemy: a multi-agent AI that connects a pharma company's internal data to OpenTargets, PubMed, and PubChem for target ID, compound evaluation, and evidence synthesis. Every answer is traceable to source data. That matters for science and for regulators.

SCIENCE vs SOCIAL SCIENCE Should parents be allowed to fix debilitating genetic diseases in embryos pre-birth? @CathyTie of @OriginGenomics to debate Deputy Dean of Harvard Law. The 2026 Scopes Monkey Trial. April 23 | 6 PM ET | Free livestream tinyurl.com/5avm5yyz

CRISPR cuts DNA. Prime editing rewrites it. Much less risk. March 26: @PrimeMedicine published the first human prime editing results in NEJM. Two patients. Both restored function. Zero safety concerns. The next generation of gene editing just entered the clinic.

Another approach to sickle cell by @editasmed. In a @ClevelandClinic study, 27 of 28 sickle cell patients achieved a functional cure from a single CRISPR edit No donor. No ongoing therapy. Investors: the template is proven. Watch for more blood disorder startups.

The EU's New Genomic Techniques vote is May 18. A yes vote opens 450 million consumers to fewer kill-all pesticides, lower food costs, less dependence on petrochemical fertilizers, less deforestation, more nutrition. Watch this date.

Every child in the trial survived. The @US_FDA just approved Kresladi, @RocketPharma's one-time gene therapy for LAD-I, a rare immune disorder that killed most children before age 2. 9 patients. 100% survival. Up to 45 months of follow-up. Genetic engineering saves lives.

@Anthropic paid $400M in stock for Coefficient Bio (<10 people, 8 months old, $0 revenue). 38,513% paper IRR for Dimension VC. Anthropic wants do to bio research what they are doing to coding.

Like venture? Like liquidity? Q1 2026 biopharma: ~$50B in M&A and IPOs. Hottest targets: CAR-T, RNA platforms, complement biology. Lilly paid $2.4B for Orna's in vivo CAR-T platform. Gilead paid $8B for Arcellx's CAR-T. VC returns are coming from science.

Last year, CRISPR Therapeutics' CTX310 just cut LDL cholesterol 49% and triglycerides 55% with a single injection. One dose. Sustained at 60 days. Phase 1 data published in NEJM by @ClevelandClinic. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41211945/

Casgevy for sickle cell was the 1st approved CRISPR medicine. Amazing trial results. But, the delivery didn't scale. It needs chemo, bone marrow transplants, many months, and $2.2M. Two years later, only 60 patients treated. Next-gen, one-time, in vivo editors will change that.

One year ago, at @ChildrensPhila, baby KJ became the first person to receive a personalized CRISPR therapy. He had a rare disorder with 50% infant mortality. Now he's walking, talking, and home with his family. One patient. One mutation. The future of medicine is personalized.

The FDA just changed the rules to make personalized gene therapy scalable. Previously: one mutation = one trial application. Now: show the mechanism works, then extend to similar mutations. The science exists to cure 10,000 rare diseases. Now the regulatory path does too.

RNA therapies mostly only work in the liver. Muscle has been harder. Today, @Sarepta x @ArrowheadPharma showed clinical data of siRNA reaching muscle tissue. Disease target knocked down, stock price knocked up 35%.

CRISPR without cutting: researchers reactivated a silenced gene by removing methylation from DNA. No double-strand breaks. Fully reversible. The target? Fetal hemoglobin for sickle cell. We're moving from editing the genome to programming the epigenome. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12…

Researchers at @UCSF and @GladstoneInst just engineered CAR-T cells INSIDE a living body using CRISPR. No lab. No weeks of manufacturing. No $400K price tag. This might bring cancer immunotherapy from a boutique procedure to a simple injection.