Programs
COUR’s team of researchers and scientists work together to harness cutting-edge science to treat life-changing conditions. We are engaged in multiple preclinical programs across a wide range of rare and orphan autoimmune diseases. In partnership with Takeda, CNP-101 for celiac disease is the first therapy to induce antigen-specific immune tolerance in any autoimmune disease in humans.
Autoimmune Diseases
Autoimmune disease is a condition in which the body cannot distinguish between pathogens and healthy cells. There are more than 80 different autoimmune diseases without a cure. Most clinicians rely upon immune suppressing therapies with limited results.
Allergies
A healthy immune system easily distinguishes between pathogens and non- threatening entities like food or pollen. In allergy, the immune system is sensitized to an otherwise non-threatening entity like peanuts and mounts an abnormal immune reaction, which can become life-threatening anaphylaxis. COUR’s lead program in allergy is directed against the growing threat of peanut allergies in adults and children.
Rare Diseases
A rare disease is a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people. There are as many as 7,000 identified rare diseases, which affects an estimated 25-30 million Americans. Due to their nature, little is known about most rare diseases, and they are often misdiagnosed or late to diagnose. Medical care relies on the management of treatment and does not address underlying conditions.
Gene Therapy
Most life-saving therapies are based on biologics or protein therapies, including gene therapy. However, these therapies lead to an immune response that, over time, limits their efficacy. The immune system begins to see these biologics as foreign and produces neutralizing antibodies against them, removing them from the body reducing their therapeutic effect. Clinicians currently rely on immune suppressants to offset this effect, but existing immune-suppressant therapies come at the cost of severe, often life-threatening, side effects. COUR’s nanoparticle platform neutralizes antibodies by harnessing the immune system’s learning power to induce the immune system to build a tolerance to gene therapy treatments.
