Company aims to extend human healthspan via a combination of preventive RNAi therapeutics and AI-powered risk prediction.
Preventive health biotech Corsera Health today announced it has secured an $80 million Series A financing to advance its mission to boost human healthspan by “predicting and preventing” cardiovascular disease. The Boston-based company also revealed has begun dosing participants in its first in-human clinical trial of its lead program – an RNA interference therapy aimed at lowering cholesterol.
Corsera was co-founded by John Maraganore and Clive Meanwell, long-time collaborators responsible for bringing multiple cardiovascular drugs to market and building companies such as Alnylam, The Medicines Company, and Metsera. In a statement, Meanwell said Corsera was “motivated by a bold vision: a world without cardiovascular disease.”
The company’s focus is atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a leading global cause of death, which is caused by plaque buildup in arteries. These plaques develop silently over decades, but most interventions focus on treating high cholesterol and high blood pressure only after years of cumulative exposure have already damaged arterial walls.
With the goal of pushing cardiovascular care upstream, Corsera’s strategy combines two key elements: long-acting preventive medicines and an AI-enabled platform designed to estimate an individual’s lifetime cardiovascular risk. The company says the new funding will support both sides of its approach, funding clinical development of its preventive RNAi therapies as well as continued work on its prediction platform, dubbed “Klotho.”
“By combining AI-enabled prediction of lifetime ASCVD risk with preventive RNAi medicines, Corsera has the potential to change the trajectory of cardiovascular disease, enabling earlier intervention and broad access to prevention at a population scale,” said Maraganore.
Klotho models and individual’s lifetime exposure to cholesterol and blood pressure and estimates how much cardiovascular healthspan could be gained by intervening earlier. The goal is to identify people who might benefit from prevention decades before traditional thresholds would trigger treatment.
On the clinical front, Corsera’s lead program, COR-1004 is a small interfering RNA designed to silence PCSK9, a well-validated target involved in regulating low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. In addition to safety and tolerability, the Phase 1 study, currently underway in New Zealand, will also look at how effectively the drug reduces circulating PCSK9 and lowers LDL cholesterol, as well as how long the effects persist. Initial proof-of-concept data are expected in 2026.
COR-1004 is the first part of a broader preventive therapy Corsera ultimately intends to deliver as a once-yearly injection. The second component, COR-2003, targets angiotensinogen, a key driver of blood pressure, with a Phase 1 trial planned to begin in mid-2026. Together, the two RNAi therapies are intended to address the elevated cholesterol and high blood pressure that quietly drive cardiovascular damage over a lifetime.
The oversubscribed round was co-led by Forbion and Population Health Partners and includes a mix of institutional backers and insiders.
“The company’s integrated approach, combining durable RNAi therapeutics with advanced predictive technology, has the potential to fundamentally shift cardiovascular care from late intervention to true prevention,” said Forbion’s Marco Boorsma.
