Caffeine

NewLimit’s lead asset uses lipid nanoparticles to deliver mRNA to liver cells that codes for transcription factors known to make hepatocytes look—and act—younger.\n Anti-aging biotech NewLimit plans to push a liver-rejuvenating mRNA medicine into the clinic with the aid of a $130 million series B fundraising round.The round was led by Kleiner Perkins alongside new investors Nat Friedman/Daniel Gross, Khosla Ventures and Human Capital, the company announced in a May 6 release.The preclinical company’s lead asset uses lipid nanoparticles to deliver mRNA to liver cells that codes for transcription factors known to make hepatocytes look—and act—younger, NewLimit co-founder and President Jacob Kimmel, Ph.D., told Fierce Biotech in an interview.“Old and young cells use different genes,” Kimmel said, “and then, more importantly, old cells have a loss of function that occurs in the cell types that we\'re going after.” In the liver, for example, older cells aren’t as good at processing alcohol and caffeine as younger cells, Kimmel added.The company’s first target is alcohol-related liver disease, Kimmel said, with plans to enter the clinic in the next few years. But, just like GLP-1s before them, NewLimit hopes to use early indications as a stepping stone to broader and broader patient populations. “We\'ve really been inspired by GLP-1s, medicines that started in a group of diabetic patients that later expanded through obesity and later to a number of other indications as well,” Kimmel said. “Following an approval in alcoholic liver disease, if we are so lucky, we would then hope to expand to earlier stage liver disease patients for multiple etiologies, and eventually to treating patients who have metabolic syndrome.” Kimmel said the company is developing intravenous drugs with the goal of dosing every three weeks at the shortest, similar to Alnylam’s small interfering RNA drug Onpattro (patisiran).“You can dose that medicine every three weeks, and this is something where it\'s both demonstrated to be safe and effective and commercially viable,” Kimmel said. “We see that as sort of the minimum bar, and we think we\'ve got some early evidence today that we\'re on track.”NewLimit’s science builds on discoveries in epigenetic reprogramming, the idea that tweaks to how genes are expressed can make cells behave differently or even switch cell types entirely. For example, Shinya Yamanaka, Ph.D., won a Nobel Prize in 2012 for demonstrating that mouse skin cells could be induced to turn into stem cells, at which point they could then develop into many other possible cell types.NewLimit was founded in 2022 with the goal of making medicines that reprogram old cells to extend patients’ health spans, a term that has been growing in popularity. Last month, Flagship Pioneering debuted a preemptive medicine biotech called Etiome with $50 million in financing and a goal of “increasing our health spans, not just our lifespans,” company CEO Avak Kahvejian, Ph.D., told Fierce.