Founder: Professor Rakesh Veedu

Australia produces world-class medical research but has long struggled to turn it into commercial medicines without shipping discoveries offshore. Perth biotech Syngenis Labs wants to keep drug discovery and commercialisation under one roof and has raised an oversubscribed $4 million pre-float round to do so.

Rather than betting on a single drug, Syngenis is building an integrated platform to take RNA and DNA-based medicines from concept to clinical-grade manufacturing under one roof. The raise, run through Euroz Hartleys, lands as global demand for RNA therapeutics and specialist manufacturing continues to climb in mRNA's post-COVID wake.

At the core is Discovery AI, a proprietary engine that identifies therapeutic targets, designs RNA and DNA candidates, screens them computationally and preps them for lab validation. It has already designed its first therapeutic candidate. A second AI engine, still in development, aims to simulate clinical trials before patients are enrolled, thereby reducing risk and costs.

The largest share of funding goes to a GMP manufacturing facility due to open in January, which would put Syngenis among a handful of labs worldwide able to make human-grade oligonucleotides for trials.