Enveda: Dermatitis drug candidate could help treat asthma

BOULDER — Boulder-based Enveda Biosciences, which uses machine learning to discover naturally occurring drug compounds, plans to begin testing ENV-294, its leading drug candidate developed to treat atopic dermatitis, as a treatment for asthma.

After launching clinical trials for ENV-294 in dermatitis patients last year, Enveda said it “has since identified asthma as a high-impact follow-on indication for ENV-294 following promising preclinical and translational data in asthma models. This expansion underscores the company’s ability to discover and leverage novel chemistry to provide transformative first-in-class therapies for patients.”

Enveda has assembled an advisory board of pulmonologists and asthma researchers to accelerate development of this potential new use for the drug candidate. The board is chaired by Dr. Michael Wechsler, director of the Cohen Family Asthma Institute at National Jewish Health.

“The opportunity to work with Enveda on the development of ENV-294 is exciting,” Wechsler said in a prepared statement. “Asthma remains a challenging disease with significant unmet needs, and ENV-294’s novel mechanism of action and oral route of administration has the potential to change the treatment paradigm for many patients.”

The company closed on a $130 million Series C round late last year to bolster its drug-discovery efforts. Enveda Biosciences, also known as Enveda Therapeutics Inc., has 10 drug candidates in its development pipeline.

The roughly 6-year-old company, which wrapped up a $119 million Series B fundraising round in June, has about 250 employees across the globe, including at Enveda’s Asian headquarters in Hyderabad, India.

The company’s North American operations are based out of a 60,000-square-foot facility in Boulder’s Flatiron Park business campus.

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