Immitra Bio Receives a CHF 150,000 Gebert Rüf Stiftung InnoBooster Grant

Geneva-based startup Immitra Bio has been selected as one of the latest winners of the InnoBooster programme, supported by the Gebert Rüf Stiftung. This CHF 150,000 grant will be used to build a scalable in-vivo gene-editing platform to make genetic therapies accessible to all patients, regardless of where they live or their financial means.

Founded in January 2025 as an ETH Zurich spinoff, Immitra Bio was born out of the lab of Jacob Corn, one of the pioneers of CRISPR-Cas genome editing. The startup is tackling one of the field’s most pressing bottlenecks: scalability. Most gene therapies today are developed ex vivo — cells are extracted, manipulated, and reinjected — a complex, costly process often requiring prior chemotherapy, which can leave patients immunocompromised. The price tag frequently runs into hundreds of thousands of francs per patient, putting these treatments out of reach for the vast majority.

Immitra Bio’s ambition is to replace this multi-month process with a single injection capable of durably correcting a genetic defect directly in vivo. The platform is already being applied to four therapeutic programmes: three blood disorders, including sickle cell disease — which affects around 400,000 people in North America and Europe yet has reached fewer than 150 patients with approved gene therapy — and one neurological condition.

The team, which will soon count five employees, is headquartered at FONGIT in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva. A pre-seed funding round involving the ETH Foundation, FONGIT, and private investors is currently being finalised, with clinical trials targeted for late 2028 or early 2029.

Immitra Bio has also been selected for the 2026 Venture Leaders Biotech programùe, joining the Swiss National Startup Team for a Boston roadshow from 31 May to 5 June 2026.

➡️ Source: Gebert Rüf Stiftung | 📸© Immitra Bio, the company’s team.