fibrosis
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Mediar Therapeutics wants to stop the scar makers
Three hospital research programs became one biotech with a shared suspicion: fibrosis might be interrupted where scar tissue is made. Now Mediar is testing that idea in lungs, skin and kidneys - with Lilly and Ono taking an interest.
Insilico Medicine taught AI to design a drug. Now comes the human test.
A lung disease, an unfamiliar target and a molecule designed by machines: Insilico Medicine has taken its AI discovery experiment into Phase III. The clever part is how it pays for the long wait.
Baseimmune
Baseimmune is a London-based biotech that uses a proprietary deep-learning platform to design synthetic antigens - the active ingredients in vaccines and immunotherapies. Founded in 2019 by three researchers who met at Oxford's Jenner Institute, the company originally built AI-designed 'future-proof' vaccine candidates against fast-mutating pathogens such as coronavirus, malaria and African swine fever. In 2026 it extended its computational antigen-design platform beyond infectious disease into chronic conditions, with a lead program targeting idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Baseimmune closed an $11.3M (about GBP 9M) Series A in February 2024 led by MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and IQ Capital.
Alentis Therapeutics
Alentis Therapeutics is a Swiss clinical-stage biotech built around a single, unusual biological target: Claudin-1 (CLDN1), a tight-junction protein that becomes exposed in both fibrotic tissue and solid tumors. Founded in 2019 on the discovery of physician-scientist Professor Thomas Baumert, the company develops first-in-class monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates that bind exposed CLDN1 to reverse organ fibrosis and treat CLDN1-positive cancers. Headquartered in Allschwil near Basel with R&D roots in Strasbourg, Alentis has raised roughly $365 million across rounds, including a $181.4 million Series D in November 2024, and is running clinical trials for its lead antibody lixudebart (ALE.F02) and two ADCs, ALE.P02 and ALE.P03.
Arda Therapeutics
Arda Therapeutics is a San Carlos, California biotech building precision biologics that eliminate the specific cells driving chronic disease rather than tinkering with the proteins those cells produce. Using a single-cell data discovery engine, Arda maps disease-specific cell states, pinpoints their surface markers, and designs targeted therapies that deplete only the harmful cells while sparing healthy tissue. Founded in 2021 by former Calico scientist Adam Freund, the company is applying lessons from oncology to fibrosis, autoimmune, and metabolic disease, backed by a $43M Series A led by a16z Bio + Health.
Epirium Bio
Epirium Bio is a San Diego-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing orally available small molecules that target PGE2 signaling to restore tissue homeostasis, reduce inflammation, and stimulate regeneration. Its lead candidate, MF-300, is a first-in-class oral 15-PGDH enzyme inhibitor advancing toward a Phase 2b trial for sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle strength for which no FDA-approved therapy currently exists.
HAYA Therapeutics
HAYA Therapeutics is a clinical-stage precision medicines company spun out of Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in 2019. It develops RNA-guided programmable therapeutics that target long non-coding RNAs in the so-called 'dark genome' - the roughly 98% of human DNA that does not code for proteins - to reprogram disease-driving cell states. Its lead candidate, HTX-001, is an antisense oligonucleotide targeting the cardiac lncRNA Wisper for heart failure, with a broader pipeline spanning fibrosis, metabolic disease and cancer. The company is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, with US laboratory operations in San Diego, and raised a $65M Series A in May 2025.
Mirador Therapeutics
Mirador Therapeutics is a San Diego precision-medicine company building first- and best-in-class therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. Its Mirador360 engine fuses human genetics, multi-modal patient data, AI and advanced analytics to find novel targets, design combination therapies and identify the patients most likely to respond. Founded in 2024 by the former Prometheus Biosciences leadership team, Mirador launched with more than $400 million and has since raised over $650 million total.
Calluna Pharma
Calluna Pharma is an Oslo-based clinical-stage biotech building first-in-class antibodies that switch off the upstream signals driving inflammation and fibrosis. Formed in 2024 from the merger of Oxitope Pharma and Arxx Therapeutics and backed by a EUR 75 million Series A, the company targets damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) such as S100A4 to halt diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at their root rather than managing symptoms.