Roche subsidiary Genentech is set to buy U.S.-based Jecure Therapeutics in a move similar to its rivals seeking to create new drugs to treat fatty liver disease. Jecure Therapeutics is a biotechnology company with novel drug discovery programs targeting serious inflammatory diseases.
With this acquisition, Genentech will obtain full rights to Jecure’s preclinical portfolio of NLRP3 inhibitors. Jecure began operations in 2015 with a seed financing from founding investor Versant Ventures. The company raised $20 million in a Series A round from Versant in 2017 to continue to develop and advance its portfolio of NLRP3 inhibitors.
Nucleotide-binding oligomerization (NOD)-like Receptor Family Pyrin Domain Containing Protein 3 (NLRP3) is an immunomodulatory protein involved in the activation of certain inflammasomes, protein complexes responsible for the activation of cellular inflammatory responses. Studies have linked cellular stress signals to the activation of NLRP3 inflammasomes in a wide range of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), liver fibrosis, gout, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and cardiovascular diseases.
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