Apple Tree-backed Stoke launches with $40M A round

Stoke Therapeutics Inc. (Bedford, Mass.) emerged from stealth mode on Jan. 4 with a $40 million series A round from Apple Tree Partners, the company's seed investor and sole backer. Stoke also hired as its CEO Edward Kaye, the former CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SRPT).

Stoke is using its Targeted Augmentation of Nuclear Gene Output (TANGO) technology to develop antisense oligonucleotides that modulate RNA splicing to promote gene expression. Kaye told BioCentury the technology uses “the body's own machinery" to up-regulate proteins. Unlike other techniques such as exon skipping, the technology can also be used to make a full-length protein, Kaye said...