Orbital raises $270 million in first funding round

Orbital Therapeutics, a new Cambridge-based startup that boasts some of the most familiar names in biotechnology, said Wednesday that it has raised $270 million in the company’s first fund-raising round, despite the deep slump in the business sector. Orbital plans to use the money to develop medicines and vaccines that rely on RNA molecules, which deliver instructions from DNA to the body’s protein-making machinery and help to turn genes off and on. Moderna and Pfizer harnessed that mechanism for their enormously profitable COVID-19 vaccines, while Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has used it in five drugs approved to fight rare diseases. “We are at the point where the RNA technologies are mature enough that you can see . . . an explosive opportunity,” said Giuseppe Ciaramella (right), Orbital’s chief executive and a cofounder of the privately held firm, which was launched in September. Ciaramella said that Orbital plans to focus on three areas: a new generation of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases and treat serious illnesses; medicines that change the body’s immune system to fight illnesses ranging from cancer to autoimmune disorders; and drugs that replace defective or missing proteins, causing diseases. Ciaramella is well versed in the powers of RNA. He served as chief scientific officer of the infectious diseases division of Cambridge-based Moderna until 2018. Moderna’s COVID vaccine, like the one developed by Pfizer, uses messenger RNA to direct cells to produce copies of the “spike protein” on the coronavirus to stimulate an immune response. The chairman of Orbital’s board, John Maraganore, is also steeped in RNA science. He served as chief executive of Cambridge biotech Alnylam for more than 19 years before leaving at the end of 2021. Since 2018, Alnylam has persuaded the Food and Drug Administration to approve five drugs that rely on RNA interference, a Nobel Prize-winning approach to mute disease-causing genes. Maraganore is also a cofounder of Orbital. The firm’s scientific cofounders include Dr. Drew Weissman, a professor in vaccine research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Lexington native whose research contributed to the development of mRNA vaccines.