Greenstone Biosciences has received a Catalyze R61 award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to fund the discovery of drug candidates targeting myocardial fibrosis and dilated cardiomyopathy in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The R61 phase will support target identification and early candidate discovery with a possible R33 follow-on to fund synthesis, characterization and in vivo testing prior to IND-enabling studies.
The program will leverage patient-derived cardiomyocyte disease models, unbiased proteomics, computational drug screening and generative AI to identify and validate candidates, according to the company.
DMD affects about one in every 3,500 baby boys worldwide and heart disease is the leading cause of death; corticosteroids can delay heart failure, but more than a quarter of patients cannot tolerate or do not respond to them, and no approved therapy directly targets disease-related cardiac scarring.
Greenstone highlights its large human-induced pluripotent stem cell resources and AI-driven platform as central to the effort. The release also notes a shifting regulatory environment, citing recent FDA and congressional developments that the company says strengthen support for human-relevant models in drug development.
