TACKLING THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC

WITH OUR NOVEL GENE THERAPIES FOR CHRONIC PAIN

Chronic Pain

30% of Americans are living with some form of chronic or severe pain.

More people live with CHRONIC PAIN than CANCER, HEART DISEASE, and DIABETES, combined.

Crisis

300% increase in opioid prescriptions in the last decade

1 in 4 patients become addicted to opioids

More than $560B spent annually on healthcare due to pain disorders

121 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose

Our Approach

We have developed an epigenetic gene therapy to target pain that is non-addictive, highly specific, and long-lasting.

Our Technology

We were inspired by nature: there are humans that have a mutation in their genome that feel no pain whatsoever. We have imitated this process by utilizing a novel gene therapy to target pain. In our proof of concept, we have demonstrated our epigenetic therapy increases pain tolerance and lowers pain levels.

Our Company

Founded in 2018, Navega Therapeutics Inc. is a preclinical stage company pursuing a radically different approach to treat chronic pain and tackle the opioid epidemic. Our gene therapy platform has the advantage of being highly specific and long-lasting, which has not been achieved by small molecules thus far. Our pipeline includes different types of pain to improve the quality of life of millions of patients.

Team

Ana Moreno PhD

Founder & CEO

Ana Moreno is the founder and CEO of Navega Therapeutics. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Bioengineering Department at UCSD , where she spent the last four years developing the platform that enables Navega’s innovative approach.

Fernando Aleman PhD

Co-founder & CSO

Fernando obtained his PharmD degree at University of Granada and his PhD at University of Murcia. After postdoc training at UCSD and the Scripps, he leverages his pharmaceutical and industry background to provide medical oversight and strategic direction.

Prashant Mali PhD

Scientific co-founder

Prashant is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego. Research in his laboratory lies at the interface of basic science and technology development, towards enabling gene and cell based human therapeutics.

Tony L. Yaksh PhD

Scientific Advisor

Tony is Professor in Anesthesiology and Pharmacology at UC San Diego (1988-present). His studies (> 850 papers) provide a basis for understanding the pharmacology of pain processing, focused on spinal systems and delivery of neuraxial therapeutics.

Marcus B. Noyes, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Marcus is a Professor at the New York University School of Medicine. His labs have focused on the development of novel tools to understand and engineer protein-DNA interactions. He has specifically concentrated on the development of zinc finger domains.

Randall E. Woods

Business Advisor

Randall E. Woods is a serial life science entrepreneur, pharmaceutical and biotechnology executive. Mr. Woods brings more than 40 years of experience to the biotech/pharmaceutical arena.

Mark Wallace MD

Medical Advisor

Dr. Wallace is Chair, Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, UCSD. He diagnoses and treats all forms of pain, with a focus on chronic pain. He has extensive experience with spinal drug delivery to treat chronic pain.

Stephen Waxman MD, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Stephen Waxman is the Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Pharmacology at Yale. His research has made pivotal contributions in injury to the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, and he pinpointed Nav1.7 as a master controller of pain.

Contact us!

Navega Therapeutics Inc.

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