Company Overview

GeNeuro is a Swiss-based clinical stage company committed to bringing safe and effective solutions for stopping the progression of the disability caused by autoimmune diseases, starting with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

GeNeuro leverages the growing understanding of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), which are traces in the genome of viral infections that affected our ancestors, and today represent over 8% of the total human DNA. HERVs do not normally encode for proteins but, in pathological situations, HERV proteins can be expressed and found in the affected tissues, and may play a key role in the onset and development of multiple autoimmune diseases. 

GeNeuro is testing temelimab, a monoclonal antibody targeting pHERV-W Env, a HERV protein which is found in the brain of MS patients and has been showed to be capable of fueling important mechanisms behind the build-up of brain damage and disability. Temelimab has already shown on 200+ patients for two years that it has a coherent impact across all key MRI markers associated with disease progression. Temelimab is currently tested at the Karolinska Institutet’s Academic Specialist Center in Stockholm on a cohort of patients experiencing disability progression in the absence of relapses, to confirm its potential against the progression of disability, which is the key unmet need for MS patients. 

GeNeuro has also entered into a partnership with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS, part of the NIH), as NINDS evidenced the potential role of another HERV protein (pHERV-K Env) found in patients with the sporadic form of ALS.  GeNeuro has launched a preclinical development program of a novel antibody targeting pHERV-K Env, with the objective of reaching an IND by 2021.

The growing understanding of HERV biology in many areas of key unmet medical needs, such as type 1 diabetes and inflammatory psychosis, will offer new avenues for bringing much needed new and effective treatments to patients. GeNeuro is ideally placed to leverage this knowledge into new therapeutic solutions.