Navega Therapeutics

About:

Navega Therapeutics is a preclinical stage company developing epigenetic gene therapies for neurological and ophthalmic diseases.

Website: https://www.navegatx.com/

Top Investors: Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Description:

Navega Therapeutics is a preclinical stage company developing gene therapies for neurological disorders (including pain) and ophthalmic diseases. Navega’s technology employs epigenetic regulation tools through a non-immunogenic platform. Our lead program is a gene therapy to treat chronic pain. We have achieved pain relief in four preclinical pain models via repression of Nav1.7, a pain gatekeeper gene. Our approach is completely different from previous attempts. Rather than targeting the protein or the RNA, which undergo extensive turnover, we target the DNA of Nav1.7 to downregulate the channel without introducing permanent mutations in the genome. Our co-lead program is a mutation agnostic approach to tackle all forms of retinitis pigmentosa, preventing neuronal degeneration in the eye through in vivo cellular reprogramming. We secured more than $8M in grants from the NIH and CIRM and with a strong IP portfolio internally developed and in-licensed from UCSD, we are well poised to create the medicines of the future.