- SHANGHAI, Jan 12th, 2023 -- EnnovaBio Pharmaceuticals ("EnnovaBio") and Rona Therapeutics, Inc ("Rona"), today announced a collaboration to jointly discover and develop first-in-class siRNA therapeutics to treat liver diseases. The collaboration will leverage both companies' scientific and technological expertise and will build on Rona's proprietary platform in RNAi targeting liver and extrahepatic tissues.
- Under the term of the collaboration, Rona will use proprietary RAZOR™ platform to discover and identify siRNA lead compounds directed to a novel target related to liver protection and EnnovaBio will contribute drug discovery and development as well as translational expertise and capabilities.
“Rona is dedicated to the discovery and development of transformative RNA therapeutics for patients globally,” said Stella Shi, Founder and CEO at Rona. "“Partnering with leading company like EnnovaBio is a strategic fit. The target plays an important role in liver disease cascade but is ‘undruggable’ by conventional modalities. The combination of disease biology expertise from EnnovaBio and Rona’s proprietary next generation siRNA platform technology provides a unique opportunity to drug the ‘undruggable’ and help these patients to protect their liver functions.”
“The collaboration between Rona and EnnovaBio has truly manifested into a value-creation partnership,” said Dr. Jianyong Shou, Founder and CSO of EnnovaBio. “Since inception, EnnovaBio has built core drug discovery competence with a focus on systems biology and concurrent machine learning technologies. Through its proprietary eSTEM target assessment platform, EnnovaBio has discovered and prioritized several novel drug targets in various inflammatory and metabolic diseases. The strategic partnership with Rona, a pioneering RNA therapeutics platform company, allows us to pursue first-in-class opportunities together, which might not be targeted using standard small molecule approaches otherwise.”
Protracted damage to liver cells results in hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis, which account for substantial health care costs, morbidity, and mortality globally. Obesity related nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis are rapidly becoming the most common conditions leading to liver transplantation, and approved pharmacologic therapies are currently lacking. In patients with obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the risk of progression to steatohepatitis and cirrhosis has a high degree of interindividual variability, in which genetic factors play a key role. Knock- down of susceptibility genes could lead to novel therapeutics to protect against liver diseases.
About Rona TherapeuticsRona Therapeutics is a pioneering RNA therapeutics platform company dedicated to discovery and development of modular and programmable RNA medicines to deliver to patients around the world.
Backed by blue-chip investors, Rona has developed proprietary RAZOR™ platform to discover differentiated siRNA therapeutics from next-generation chemical modification and novel biological insights. Together with partners, Rona is dedicated to advancing transformative RNA therapeutics into clinic in metabolic syndrome, glomerulonephritis, CNS and ocular diseases. For more information, please visit www.ronatherapeutics.com.
ContactsInvestor Relations / Business Development:
bd@ronatherapeutics.com
Media:
Runhan Gao
Runhan.gao@ronatherapeutics.com
