Arda Banks $43 Million for Targeted Chronic Disease Therapies

Arda Therapeutics has raised $43 million in a Series A financing round to support its novel approach to treating chronic diseases.

The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Bio + Health fund, with contributions from Two Sigma Ventures, Eli Lilly and Company, GV, and Biovision Ventures, Valhalla Ventures, Indicator Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and several others.

Arda Therapeutics is looking to treat chronic diseases through targeted cell depletion. This approach involves identifying and selectively eliminating pathogenic cells responsible for disease progression, a strategy borrowed from advances in oncology. Arda’s platform uses single-cell biology to pinpoint these cells precisely, allowing the company to develop biological therapies targeting harmful cells while sparing healthy tissue. Unlike conventional treatments that attempt to modulate proteins and signaling pathways, which often lead to limited efficacy, Arda’s method aims to improve therapeutic outcomes significantly.

The new Series A financing will advance Arda’s leading drug candidates into clinical trials and enhance its technology platform, which targets the cells responsible for causing diseases instead of using the conventional approach of altering proteins to treat illness.

“Arda is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in treating chronic diseases,” said Adam Freund, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Arda Therapeutics. “By focusing on the cells at the core of disease, we can develop therapies that are more effective and have the potential to change patient outcomes fundamentally. With drug approval rates declining and efficacy improvements stalling, Arda’s strategy to target cells—not pathways—offers a transformative shift in treating chronic diseases.”

The company’s platform has broad potential applications, including treating fibrotic diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis, autoimmune conditions, and metabolic disorders.

“The field of oncology therapeutics has been focused on tumor cell clearance as a mechanism of action for decades,” said Dr. Vineeta Agarwala, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “Many of our most potent cancer medicines—chemotherapy, CAR-T cells, antibody-drug conjugates, T cell engagers, radiopharmaceuticals—fundamentally depend on our ability to identify pathogenic, or bad actor, cell populations and then target them precisely for killing. Arda is taking the ‘oncology toolbox’ outside of oncology. Applying the lessons learned from oncology, the Arda team is leveraging cutting-edge, single-cell biology and a deep understanding of the biology of diseases outside cancer to boldly extend the cell clearance paradigm to treating chronic diseases.”

Arda Therapeutics’ approach comes at a time when traditional drug development is facing significant challenges. While many therapies that target proteins and signaling pathways have been successful in specific contexts, these treatments often result in modest improvements for patients suffering from complex, chronic diseases. According to a report by Global Market Insights, the global autoimmune disease treatment market alone is expected to reach $153 billion by 2027. The need for more effective therapies is clear, and Arda aims to fill that gap by focusing on the cellular causes of disease rather than the symptoms or downstream effects.

With the closing of this Series A financing, the company announced the appointment of Scott Turner, Ph.D., as its chief scientific officer. Dr. Turner, who previously served as chief scientific officer at Pliant Therapeutics, has expertise in fibrosis drug discovery and development. At Pliant, Dr. Turner was instrumental in building the company’s fibrosis discovery platform. His tenure saw Pliant through multiple financing rounds, including a successful IPO, and his focus on integrating single-cell data to explore drug mechanisms has been widely regarded as innovative.

“I’m thrilled to be joining Arda at such an exciting time,” said Dr. Turner. “The team has built an impressive platform for targeting pathogenic cells with precision, which holds tremendous potential for addressing the unmet needs in chronic disease. I look forward to working closely with the team to advance our lead programs toward the clinic and develop innovative therapies that can make a meaningful impact on patients’ lives.”

“We are very excited to have Scott on the team,” said Dr. Rèmi Laberge, Arda’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “His deep expertise in fibrosis drug discovery will be instrumental as we drive our programs forward. I look forward to collaborating with him to push the capabilities of our cell depletion platform to the next level.”

Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z) invests in seed to venture to growth-stage technology companies across AI, bio + healthcare, consumer, crypto, enterprise, fintech, games, infrastructure, and companies building toward American dynamism. The firm has $65 billion in assets under management across multiple funds and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with additional offices in San Francisco and New York City.