🇮🇸 RNA-LNP therapeutics startup Axelyf seeded to conquer delivery challenges

In 1989, Icelander Örn Almarsson decided to go to the United States to get a PhD, which wasn’t feasible at the time in his home country. The plan was to go for graduate school and go back to Iceland, but after five years at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Almarsson settled into Boston, where he did a postdoc at MIT, a stint at Merck, and eventually ended up at a fledgling Bob Langer company known as Moderna.

Almarsson told Inside Precision Medicine, “Moderna was very small at the time, and we had almost no delivery team, but I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to build that, to create some custom process chemistry that would later enable products such as the COVID vaccine. This was a compelling, exciting, and challenging period in my life, and it has influenced my desire to do things for myself.”

After leading Moderna’s drug delivery efforts for its COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic programs, Almarsson decided it was time to move on to a venture of his own. He recently founded Axelyf, a biotechnology company developing next-generation lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems for RNA therapeutics.

“I’m very pleased and very proud of what we did at Moderna,” Almarsson said. “But I wanted to tackle things that weren’t in the focal lens at that time, especially with the big push into vaccines in 2020. It made sense for Moderna to focus there, but I wanted to explore other possibilities for RNA medicines.”

This week, Axelyf announced securing seed funding to support the development of its proprietary LNP library and a machine learning model, dubbed ANNA (Artificial Network for Nanoparticle Assessment), designed to optimize lipid structures and predict LNP performance. Together, these platforms will support the company’s RNA therapeutics pipeline.

Almarsson is joined by former Moderna colleague Yan Xia, PhD, who now leads lipid–RNA nanotechnology development at Axelyf. The seed round was funded by three Icelandic venture firms, with Brunnur Ventures leading the financing and participation from Omega ehf and Silfurberg ehf. The startup raised $2.6 million, with the potential to extend the round to $4.1 million—a respectable amount for a seed stage company.

More than a delivery company

Axelyf’s launch comes at a politically fraught moment. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services, under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., abruptly cut half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA therapeutic development, citing shifting priorities. Almarsson takes a very different view.

“I think the RNA revolution is just starting to accelerate,” he said. “The rate-limiting factor is delivery. I’m impressed by how broadly we’re now able to bring in tools—large RNAs, DNA, and different nucleic acid types—to do different jobs. The challenge is determining where to direct them and how to deliver them. These two aspects are sometimes interconnected.”

Unlike vaccines, which rely on relatively straightforward systemic delivery, therapeutic applications require more precise targeting. One major limitation is that most existing LNPs accumulate in the liver, restricting the range of diseases they can address. Axelyf’s goal is to design particles that can reach other tissues in the body while avoiding unwanted immune reactions. Achieving this would mean fewer particles are needed to get the job done, higher potency at lower doses, and broader applications for conditions such as autoimmune disease.

Axelyf’s approach is rooted in chemistry. Last August, the company acquired an integrated lipid library from 76bio. In mouse studies, compounds from this library showed reduced immune stimulation and greater potency in gene-editing applications than a benchmark LNP (LP-01) at lower doses, without signs of liver toxicity. LP-01 is part of Intellia Therapeutics’ NTLA-2002, a CRISPR-based treatment currently in Phase III.

“This library of potent delivery compounds enables us to pursue best-in-class LNPs for our own product candidates,” said Almarsson. “But it also allows us to partner our technology with others.”

The AXL platform combines chemical modifications with rational particle design to balance potency, biodegradability, and safety. The aim is to produce delivery vehicles that can target tissues beyond the liver while maintaining tolerability in the clinic. Axelyf sees its intellectual property in chemistry as the cornerstone for building delivery systems that can support a broad pipeline of RNA medicines.

Despite its focus on improving LNPs, Axelyf does not consider itself just a delivery company. Instead, it is positioning itself more like Arcturus Therapeutics, Orion Therapeutics, Capstan Therapeutics, and ReCode Therapeutics—biotechs advancing their own RNA therapeutic pipelines supported by proprietary delivery platforms.

With the seed funding, Axelyf plans to validate its AXL technology through preclinical studies, including experiments in non-human primates, and to advance its lead investigational candidate AXL-003 that targets an undisclosed autoimmune condition using liver-directed delivery. Additionally, Axelyf will develop LNPs that have extrahepatic targeting ability—that is, the ability to reach tissues outside the liver. Finally, it will use the funds to strengthen existing collaborations and build new partnerships that can extend the reach of its delivery systems into external pipelines.

“We don’t aim to be a delivery company for the long term,” said Almarsson. “However, as things are today, there’s both a need outside of autoimmune, for example, in many, many areas, but also an important imperative to validate yourself and try to raise some knowledge of funding.”

Global momentum, despite U.S. skepticism

For Almarsson, Axelyf represents both continuity and reinvention. It builds on decades of work in nucleic acid delivery while creating space to apply lessons learned at Moderna in new directions.

He acknowledges the challenges ahead, from the complexity of biology to the unpredictability of immune responses. But he maintains that advances in chemistry, data science, and design tools can address these obstacles.

That conviction has kept him in Boston for more than three decades, far longer than the five years he initially expected to spend in the U.S. Instead of returning to Iceland, he has become one of the many scientists shaping the RNA revolution.

That said, Almarsson isn’t fond of the HHS funding cuts to RNA therapeutics, nor does he think much of the scientific and medical world is. “The vision presented last week is very regrettable,” Almarsson said. “It’s shortsighted. I don’t think the rest of the world sees it the same way. My colleagues in Iceland’s health ministry don’t understand it either. But this won’t alter the reality that RNA is here to stay—it’s not science fiction. It’s genuinely advancing, and people will continue to actively pursue it.”

Industry activity underscores this momentum. Verve Therapeutics and Capstan Therapeutics were both acquired in recent months, signaling that large pharmaceutical companies remain committed to RNA medicine. For Almarsson, these moves demonstrate that scientific and commercial confidence in RNA is strong, even if U.S. policy sends mixed signals.

“We’re just at the beginning,” Almarsson said. “RNA is going to transform medicine in ways we can’t yet imagine. The future is very promising.”

Originally published on 28 August by Brunnur Ventures.

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