Addition Therapeutics just stepped out of stealth with a clean $100M Series A, and the real story lives well below the headline. Founded in June 2021 as a UC Berkeley spinout, this South San Francisco company did not sprint to the spotlight. It stayed quiet, let the science mature, and waited until the data could hold eye contact without blinking. In a biotech market that rewards volume more than velocity, that restraint reads like confidence, not caution.
The foundation starts with Kathleen Collins, Ph.D., UC Berkeley Professor and Division Head for Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology. Her decades of work on nonviral reverse transcriptases turned what most people filed under academic curiosity into a platform with therapeutic teeth. Addition became the first Berkeley founded startup to move into Bakar Labs, and that detail matters. This was not innovation tourism. This was translation built inside the same ecosystem that produced the discovery, with patience baked in from day one.
PRINT, short for Precise RNA Mediated Insertion of Transgenes, is where the company name stops being clever and starts being literal. An all RNA, non viral, LNP delivered system built on R2 retroelements that naturally insert into ribosomal DNA safe harbor sites. No viral vectors. No random integration. No repeat dosing loop. Up to 4kb payloads, roughly 50% full length insertion efficiency, and durable expression designed for one time administration. This is genomic medicine that aims to be boring in front of regulators and fascinating everywhere else.
Ron Park, M.D., MBA brings operational gravity as CEO, shaped by years at Roche and Genentech, Ancestry, Third Rock Ventures, and Ambys Medicines. Francine Gregoire, Ph.D. anchors the platform as CSO, carrying hard earned experience from Beam Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, and Moderna. This is leadership that has watched platforms scale, stall, and snap, and knows exactly where the stress fractures usually form.
SR One led the round with Matthew Patterson stepping in as Executive Chairman, alongside Pivotal Life Sciences, Abingworth, Osage University Partners, the Gates Foundation, and BEVC. That is not a tourist syndicate. With non-human primate studies slated for 2026, multiple pharma funded research programs already in motion, and a Gates Foundation backed HIV prevention effort, Addition Therapeutics is positioning PRINT as a third path in genetic medicine. Not louder. Not faster. Just built to last long enough for the biology to do its job.
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