LifeMine Therapeutics has raised $263 million to advance a new organ-transplant drug discovered by mining the genomes of fungi.
The haul spans two rounds — a $75 million Series D in late 2025 and a $188 million Series E led by Milky Way Investments, with backers including Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier, GV, RA Capital and Arch Venture Partners — bringing LifeMine’s total private funding to about $580 million. It was announced August 6, 2026.
The drug
The lead candidate, LIFE-001, came from LifeMine’s systematic database of fungal genomes. It inhibits calcineurin — the same enzyme targeted by long-used transplant drugs — but binds a previously unknown site and, importantly, does not penetrate the brain and peripheral tissues, which the company says should make it safer than existing options. It is designed as a long-acting injectable to keep immune suppression steady.
Fungi as a drug source
Fungi have a storied history in medicine — the same starting point that gave the world penicillin, the first statin and the transplant drug cyclosporine. LifeMine, founded by veteran biotech entrepreneur Greg Verdine, is betting modern genome mining can systematically surface more. LIFE-001 is in a Phase 1 safety study, with Phase 2 results in kidney-transplant recipients expected in 2028 and early islet-cell-transplant data by the end of 2027.