HemoShear Expands Focus to Discovery of Therapeutics

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., June 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- HemoShear, a privately held discovery stage biotechnology company, announced today that they are expanding their business strategy to include a major focus to discover novel therapeutics and build a high value portfolio of therapeutic candidates. The Company will initially focus on developing therapies in organic acidemias, a group of rare genetic metabolic disorders, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). To reflect this new focus on drug discovery, HemoShear will change its name to HemoShear Therapeutics.

To build depth of understanding and a strong portfolio of therapeutic candidates, HemoShear Therapeutics will leverage its proprietary platform, REVEAL-Tx™, which provides a unique ability to characterize and interrogate metabolic disorders. By unmasking complex human pathophysiological pathways, REVEAL-Tx™ functions as a drug target identification and validation engine to optimize, identify and bring lead molecules forward to accelerate drug discovery.

"In late 2014, we established a collaboration with Children's National Medical Center (CNMC) to discover drugs for children with rare metabolic diseases," said Vincent Aurentz, President of HemoShear Therapeutics. "HemoShear Therapeutics is focusing on a family of rare disorders responsible for chemical imbalances in the body that result in life-threatening health complications at an early age. Tragically, these young patients rarely live past their teens and no drugs exist to treat their diseases."

"Traditionally, the search for rare metabolic disease therapeutics has relied on serendipity," said Dr. Marshall Summar, Chief of the Division of Genetics and Metabolism at CNMC. "In the past, diseased livers have often been discarded after transplant, but now HemoShear Therapeutics can use our children's precious liver tissue to understand the disease. With HemoShear Therapeutics' REVEAL-Tx™, we can study the biology of metabolic conditions in their native state, investigate disease pathways and develop new therapies. No other team has such a capability and expertise."

NASH is a common and serious chronic liver disease that is estimated to impact over 16 million in the U.S. alone. This is one of the fastest growing global diseases driven by poor diet, obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. NASH is characterized by inflammation, dysregulation of the body's metabolism and excessive fat accumulation in the liver that can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis and eventually liver failure. There is currently no FDA-approved treatment. 

HemoShear Therapeutics has developed proprietary models of a spectrum of fatty liver diseases. These models parallel hallmarks of fatty liver disease and NASH observed in the clinic. The National Institutes of Health, through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), is funding initiatives to support the Company's efforts in NASH discovery, including identification of disease targets by investigating the intersection between environmental and epigenetic factors using tissue from healthy and diabetic/obese patient populations. Through REVEAL-Tx™, HemoShear Therapeutics is applying proprietary, in silico, computational and analytical approaches to identify meaningful targets that regulate fatty liver disease and NASH. In addition, the Company is profiling a broad range of known and novel targets to create benchmarks for efficacy, risk and potential mechanistic challenges.

About HemoShear Therapeutics
HemoShear Therapeutics is a biotechnology company with a transformational approach to understanding human disease biology driven by REVEAL-Tx™, our revolutionary discovery platform. REVEAL-Tx™ leads us to proprietary discoveries in metabolic, cardiovascular and inflammatory disorders. Our current drug discovery efforts are focused on organic acidemias, a group of rare genetic metabolic disorders, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).   

At HemoShear Therapeutics, we believe that precision matters; better models of human disease lead to better drug targets and better therapies. We collaborate with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies who share our passion to deeply understand human disease biology and profoundly impact human health.  THINK HUMAN.

About REVEAL-Tx ™
REVEAL-Tx™, HemoShear Therapeutics proprietary discovery platform, provides a unique and powerful lens to interrogate biological mechanisms of human disease at a level not possible until now. In recreating complex pathophysiological pathways, we can identify novel targets, biomarkers and create superior therapeutics. Our discovery approach is agnostic to therapeutic modality, which allows us to apply the optimal technology to accurately and directly impact the drivers of disease.

SOURCE HemoShear Therapeutics