– GEMORNA is world’s first generative AI platform purpose-built for mRNA design and optimization, demonstrating state-of-the-art performance across diverse mRNA therapeutic applications –
– GEMORNA designs optimized mRNA sequences efficiently, significantly accelerating drug discovery by eliminating the need for iterative sequence optimization –
– Spin-out from MIT with early-stage angel backing and collaborations with leading pharma, biotech and academic institutions –
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Raina Biosciences Inc., (“Raina”), an mRNA technology and therapeutics company, today announced the publication of data from its generative AI platform in Science. The data supports Raina’s pioneering approach to mRNA design using its GEMORNA platform to generate novel sequences with superior drug properties over existing mRNA discovery methods. Founded by a team with deep RNA therapeutics and AI expertise, the Company’s mission is to transform the mRNA-based therapeutics landscape by accelerating drug discovery timelines and opening new therapeutic areas for mRNA with best-in-class AI-designed therapeutics.
The Science article, titled, “Deep generative models design mRNA sequences with enhanced translational capacity and stability,” marks a significant landmark for optimizing novel mRNAs with enhanced expression and durability to facilitate a wide range of therapeutic mRNA applications.
The article, which was published online today by the journal Science, is summarized as follows:
- Raina’s GEMORNA platform designs superior linear and circular mRNA drug molecules with optimized expression levels and durability, addressing two major issues that have limited the effectiveness of mRNA-based therapeutics
- GEMORNA is highly differentiated from prior RNA language models developed for predictive tasks through its direct design of novel sequences from a near infinite design space
- GEMORNA-generated mRNAs:
- Elicited significantly higher immune response in mice compared to a leading commercially available mRNA vaccine sequence, potentially supporting mRNA therapeutic vaccine applications for diseases such as cancer
- Achieved up to a 150-fold increase in human erythropoietin (hEPO) expression compared to an optimized benchmark, potentially supporting mRNA medicines for gene therapy
- Demonstrated a 5-fold increase in CD19 CAR expression and a 2-fold improvement in durability compared to a patented benchmark, resulting in nearly 100% anti-tumor efficacy in primary human T cells, potentially supporting mRNA therapies for in vivo CAR-T
“Raina’s GEMORNA platform is built upon a decade of the team’s foundational work in synthetic biology and artificial intelligence,” said Jicong Cao, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Raina Biosciences, and corresponding author of the Science paper. “We are excited to work with industry-leading pharma and biotech companies to expand the usage of mRNA-based therapeutics while we prepare to build an internal pipeline.”
“Raina has the potential to transform mRNA therapeutics by rapidly and reliably generating novel sequences with greater performance, precision and efficacy,” said Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D., Raina’s Chairman of the Board and former MIT faculty member. “The GEMORNA platform could be a sea change for biopharma companies pursuing mRNA-based medicines beyond traditional infectious disease vaccines ranging from neoantigen cancer vaccines, in vivo CARs, to gene editing or gene therapy applications.”
The Science publication can be found here.
Based in Boston, Raina Biosciences is a spinout company from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), founded by leaders in mRNA and AI with a strong track record in the biotech industry. Jicong Cao, Ph.D. (co-founder, Chief Executive Officer) is a former mRNA researcher at MIT and co-founder of Bota Biosciences. He Zhang, Ph.D. (co-founder, Chief Technology Officer and first author of the Science paper) was previously a Senior Staff Scientist at Baidu Research. Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D., Raina’s co-founder and Chairman of the Board, is a serial biotech entrepreneur having co-founded a number of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, and served on the MIT faculty from 2010–2022. Joel Edwards, Chief Corporate Development Officer, brings over 25 years of leadership in corporate strategy and deal-making across biotech, including his tenure as Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Raina is also supported by its key scientific advisor Jeff Coller, Ph.D., Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Inaugural Director of the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University. Raina closed an angel round of $5.7 million upon company formation.
About Raina Biosciences
Raina is pioneering the world’s first and leading generative AI platform for mRNA-based therapeutics. Using its proprietary platform, GEMORNA, Raina navigates new frontiers in mRNA engineering to design sequences with optimal profiles for expression, durability, and stability. Raina is partnering with leading pharma and biotech companies to create next generation and best-in-class mRNA-based therapeutics. To learn more about Raina Biosciences visit www.rainabio.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
