SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rubedo Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing first-in-class disease-modifying therapies for chronic age-related diseases, today announced the selection of the first-in-class development candidate RLS-1496 for the treatment of dermatological conditions using its ALEMBIC™ drug discovery platform at LSX World Conference 2023.
RLS-1496 is a disease-modifying therapy with the potential for superiority over standard of care in multiple chronic skin indications. Rubedo’s R&D program in dermatology was initiated in Q4 2021, and effective progression from target discovery to candidate nomination took one and a half years. The program will now advance into IND-enabling studies, with first-in-human studies planned early next year.
Histopathological assessment showed that Rubedo’s development candidate RLS-1496 significantly reduced senescence signatures associated with skin senescent cells, and in punch biopsies from skin lesions of patients with chronic atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.
“We’re thrilled to nominate our first disease-modifying development candidate for our dermatology program, which targets skin senescent cell types that drive chronic degenerative dermatological conditions associated with biological aging processes,” said Marco Quarta, Ph.D., CEO & Co-Founder, Rubedo Life Sciences. “Unlike current non-steroidal topical treatments that only treat the symptoms of inflammation, we believe RLS-1496 has the potential to be the first disease-modifying therapy to provide sustained relief for patients suffering from chronic conditions like dermatitis and psoriasis by targeting the skin senescent cells that cause persistent chronic inflammation.
“Many skin diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis are chronic immune-mediated inflammatory conditions that generally lack a cure, despite available therapies. There is a need for therapies with novel modes of action which have the potential to be disease-modifying interventions,” said Ofir Moreno, Ph.D., SVP, Drug Discovery. “Our preclinical data from RLS-1496 support advancement for further development and also highlight the value of our ALEMBIC™ AI Platform in facilitating drug discovery.”
ALEMBIC™ is an AI-augmented drug discovery platform that enables detection and selective targeting of specific cell populations that drive pathology. Using single-cell RNA sequencing and other omics data, Rubedo utilized its proprietary database that contains terabytes of internally-generated tissue analysis, and ALEMBIC’s extensive portfolio of proprietary algorithms, such as machine learning (ML) models to develop senescence signatures to uniquely identify and profile heterogeneous senescent and senescent-like cell populations in clinical samples of diseased tissues. ALEMBIC™ Senescence Signatures were utilized to analyze skin samples derived from patients with chronic dermatological conditions, such as dermatitis and psoriasis.
About Rubedo Life Sciences
Rubedo Life Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of innovative therapies engineered to target cells which drive chronic age-related diseases. Our proprietary ALEMBIC™ drug discovery platform has engineered novel first-in-class small molecules designed to selectively target senescent cells, which play a key role in the progression of pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, neurodegenerative, fibrotic and other chronic disorders. The Rubedo leadership team is composed of industry leaders and early pioneers in chemistry, technology, and life sciences, with expertise in drug development and commercialization from both large pharma and leading biotech companies. The company is based in Sunnyvale, CA. For additional information, visit www.rubedolife.com.
