Dicerna Officially Founded

Boston-based RNAi therapeutics startup Dicerna is finally officially out of the gates with a finalized $13M Series A financing led by Oxford Bioscience Partners and Skyline Ventures. (I profiled Dicerna last week.) Co-founder Doug Fambrough of Oxford Bioscience Partners is Chairman and Skyline Ventures’ Stephen Hoffman is also joining the board. Dicerna’s CEO is James C. Jenson, and SVP of Pharmaceutical Development is Roberto Guerciolini, both of whom are also co-founders. Dicerna’s core “Dicer substrate technology” was discovered by co-founders John Rossi, of City of Hope’s Beckman Research Institute, and Mark Behlke, at Integrated DNA Technologies. The company claims its novel approach to RNAi opens up new avenues for drug discovery and development previously shut off by other companies’ intellectual property claims.