RheumaGen, Inc. just did something quietly loud, the kind of move that doesn’t scream for attention but changes the temperature in the room. A Series A-1 investment from Beyond Celiac Investments aimed squarely at advancing a celiac disease program that is not interested in managing symptoms or negotiating diets. This is about immune tolerance, precision, and a belief that lifelong does not have to mean forever.
The origin story matters here. This company didn’t pop out of a pitch deck factory. It came out of decades of work at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where Brian Freed, PhD, has spent over forty years living inside the HLA gene, not visiting it. ClinImmune, the nonprofit clinical laboratory he founded, has already supported more than 40,000 transplants. RheumaGen, Inc. is what happens when academic depth stops apologizing for itself and decides to ship.
Richard Freed brings the counterweight. DuPont-trained, deal-tested, allergic to biotech bloat. Alongside Brian Hart, Ryan Hart, Tate Hermanson, and B. Robert Mozayeni, MD, this is a leadership group built less like a hierarchy and more like a control room. Everyone has a job. Everyone knows why they are there. No passengers.
The science is the hook and the hammer. Editing the human leukocyte antigen gene at a single anchor position, position 82, blocks the presentation of the peptides that trigger autoimmune attacks while leaving the rest of the immune system intact. One edit. One infusion. No chronic suppression. For rheumatoid arthritis alone, that targets the 10 to 20% of patients who burn through every existing option. For celiac disease, a condition affecting roughly two million Americans with no disease-modifying treatment, it opens a door that has been locked for decades.
Beyond Celiac Investments did not stumble into this. The Catalyst Program exists to find shots with real consequence, and Jordan Dubow, MD, and the BCI investment committee put this capital to work with intent. Venture philanthropy with teeth, backing preclinical proof that could shift an entire category from coping to cure.
Layer in the exclusive SiVEC Biotechnologies BactPac platform, the licensing relationship with the University of Colorado holding a 5% equity stake, and a development roadmap that keeps costs grounded while ambition stays high, and the picture sharpens. This is not noise. This is signal.
RheumaGen, Inc. is not selling hope. It is engineering restraint into the immune system itself, which is a very different proposition. Autoimmune disease has spent decades being treated like a volume problem. Turn it down. Mute it. Pay monthly. This approach asks a better question. What if the immune system just stopped making the mistake.
Startups Startup Funding Venture Capital Series A Gene Editing Immunology Biotech Healthcare Health Tech Technology Innovation Tech Ecosystem Startup Ecosystem DCTalks
