HAYWARD, Calif., Oct. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aqtual, Inc., a precision medicine company using its novel cell-free DNA platform to develop products for chronic diseases and oncology, has raised $16 million in Series A financing, co-led by Genoa Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures, and Yu Galaxy. Aqtual's proprietary platform evaluates protein regulation, epigenetics, and transcriptomics by analyzing previously unexplored cell-free DNA fragments found in blood, opening the door to new clinical applications in almost every major disease area.

Aqtual also announced today it has enrolled the first patient in PRIMA-102, a prospective clinical trial to evaluate the ability of its technology to select effective treatments for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The multi-center trial (NCT05936970) is enrolling 150 individuals diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. This rapid, proof-of-concept study aims to develop a classifier capable of predicting effective drug classes for patients.

"Eliminating background noise to develop diagnostics with great sensitivity has been the gold standard of liquid biopsy, but it turns out that 'noise' is a clinically relevant, information-rich radio frequency that Aqtual has learned to amplify," said Diana Abdueva, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Aqtual. "Our platform provides a comprehensive catalog of regulatory features to give a holistic perspective on gene and chromatin regulation, advance our understanding of disease and resistance mechanisms, and lead to innovative blood tests in the costliest disease areas."

Aqtual's Platform
Through its proprietary biochemistry and sophisticated data analysis, Aqtual is creating a catalog of entirely new biological insights, providing an order of magnitude greater detail into gene regulation, epigenetics, and transcriptomics than other cell-free DNA methods. The landscape of accessible features includes 200,000 gene promoters, 400,000 enhancers, 50,000 insulators, 20,000 silencers, and 1 million transcription factor binding sites.

"This new understanding of circulating cell-free DNA unlocks previously unattainable applications that can help doctors make better decisions for their patients. It also provides a new roadmap for drug discovery and development across multiple therapeutic areas," said Rich Rava, PhD, Aqtual's Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer.

The first disease Aqtual plans to address is rheumatoid arthritis—a highly debilitating chronic inflammatory disease. Presently, there are more than 20 available drugs in six drug classes to treat the disease. Most patients try at least two or three drugs – at significant cost – before finding one that works for them. Aqtual is developing a blood test designed to help physicians select the best treatment for each patient, minimizing the uncertainty of today's standard of care, while saving time and resources.

"Aqtual's technology has the potential to majorly improve treatment decisions and patient outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis," said Peter Taylor, MA, PhD, FRCP, FRCPE, a prominent rheumatologist at the Botnar Research Centre, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford.  

ACR Annual Meeting Presentations
Dr. Taylor will present initial data from the Aqtual platform in an oral presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Diego, Nov. 10-15. For the first time, researchers will describe how Aqtual's cell-free DNA platform can detect rheumatoid arthritis, how it corresponds with results from synovial biopsies, and how it can differentiate rheumatoid arthritis from other autoimmune conditions and osteoarthritis.

About Aqtual, Inc.
Aqtual, Inc. is a precision medicine company developing products for chronic disease management and oncology utilizing a novel cell-free DNA-based platform. Aqtual's proprietary platform evaluates protein regulation, epigenetics, and transcriptomics solely using cell-free DNA fragments found in blood.  The platform yields efficient and robust real-time analysis of disease and treatment while overcoming the limitations of previous cell-free DNA methodologies.