Promakhos Therapeutics

At Promakhos Therapeutics, we create therapies for autoinflammatory diseases based on a new and unexplored mechanism to restore our body’s innate ability to heal and resolve inflammation.

We develop an oral, bowel-specific, non-immunosuppressive therapy for Crohn’s disease, a debilitating and chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract. Over 700,000 patients are affected by Crohn’s disease in the US and the current standard of care manages symptoms by blocking the immune system. We restore immune function by re-activating a defective immune mechanism specifically observed in Crohn’s patients.

So far, we have: 1. Generated a library of novel small molecules and identified three lead molecules with nanomolar affinity for our molecular target, 2. Demonstrated that these molecules protect against acute bowel inflammation in mice, 3. Demonstrated oral bioavailability for one of the lead molecules, and 4. Developed a pharmacodynamics assay to monitor target engagement and compound elimination kinetics in mice.

We further strengthen our understanding of inflammatory diseases by single-cell gene expression profiling in healthy and diseased contexts, coupled with computational analysis. By leveraging our library of new immune modulators and this genetically and computationally driven methodology, we aim to develop new therapeutics for restoring immune function in other inflammatory diseases.