Approach aims to identify multiple disease-driven molecular changes, long before cognitive decline becomes apparent.
Brain health diagnostics company Circular Genomics has secured $15 million in Series A financing to advance its platform for detecting Alzheimer’s disease through a type of molecule known as circular RNA. The San Diego-based company will use the funding to accelerate clinical validation and prepare for the commercialization of new diagnostic tools with the potential to identify disease biology before symptoms emerge.
Circular is developing precision medicine tools leveraging circular RNAs, or circRNAs, to detect early neurological and psychiatric disease. CircRNAs are highly stable molecules produced in a closed-loop “circular” form that allows them to persist in blood without degrading rapidly. They are abundant in the brain and respond dynamically to neuronal activity, enabling them to mirror changes across multiple disease-relevant pathways.
Because they cross the blood–brain barrier and remain measurable in whole blood, Circular claims circRNA offers a non-invasive readout of biological changes associated with neurodegeneration, psychiatric disorders and other brain-related conditions. The company is applying these characteristics to build transcriptomic models that integrate hundreds of molecular signals, generating a biologically detailed picture of disease risk and progression.
Commenting on the new funding, Circular CEO Paul Sargeant said there was an “urgent need for accessible, comprehensive blood-based biomarkers that can detect Alzheimer’s biology at the earliest stages.”
The company is targeting a long-standing diagnostic gap in Alzheimer’s disease, where many cases are only identified years after symptoms begin. The recent approvals of disease-modifying therapies have increased the case for screening tools that can detect Alzheimer’s biology early and distinguish it from other dementias so that patients can be evaluated for treatment at the point when interventions are most likely to change the disease trajectory.
Circular’s platform is designed to address this gap by capturing the complexity of the molecular pathways disrupted across the Alzheimer’s continuum. The circRNA approach builds on the molecules’ ability to capture multiple interconnected biological pathways. In Alzheimer’s disease, this includes neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, synaptic dysfunction, amyloid and tau regulation and neural plasticity. By quantifying signals across these pathways simultaneously, the company aims to deliver models that reflect the diverse contributors to disease onset and progression rather than relying on a single marker of pathology.
Circular’s data suggests that circRNA signatures can help identify pre-symptomatic individuals likely to progress to symptomatic disease. Study results being presented by the company this week at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) Conference highlight the potential for circRNA-based risk prediction, clinical status classification and assessment of disease-driven molecular changes before cognitive decline becomes apparent.
The round was led by Mountain Group Partners, with participation from Poplar Grove Investors, HIP Fund and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF).
“The convergence of disease-modifying therapies and innovative blood-based diagnostics is creating a transformational moment in Alzheimer’s disease care,” said Poplar Grove CEO Andrew Lechleiter, before hailing Circular’s approach for “its ability to capture the complex biology of Alzheimer’s disease across multiple pathogenic pathways, which can provide clinicians with actionable insights, potentially even before memory and thinking issues emerge, that can fundamentally change patient care trajectories.”
Circular said the new capital will support expanded validation studies, technical enhancements that extend the platform into new disease areas, and the formation of academic, industry and diagnostic partnerships. The funds will also be used to grow the company’s teams in clinical development, regulatory strategy, commercial operations and scientific research.
