The accumulation of protein aggregates in neurons is a cardinal feature of many neurodegenerative diseases. This pathological manifestation is known as proteinopathy. Proteinopathies often result from a confluence of risk factors, such as aging, noxious insults, faulty genes and genetic predispositions.

These risk factors promote misfolded and damaged proteins that become resistant to degradation and thereby gradually accumulate in cells and tissues.  This decline in the clearance of protein deposits promotes proteotoxicity to neurons and supporting cells and a decline of neuronal fitness. Further, these effects elicit a cascade of downstream events and secondary clinical manifestations, such as neuroinflammation.
 
Proteinopathies underpinning neurodegenerative diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), Alzheimer’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease, lead to visual impairments or blindness, severe cognitive decline and dementia, fast motor impairments, and often death. These diseases represent enormous public health burdens, and they lead to tremendous distress and decreased quality of life of patients and caregivers.

Neuroprotective therapies for proteinopathies and neurodegeneration remain an urgent and unmet clinical need.

NeuroEgis is developing first-in-class and multifunctional small molecules in areas of therapeutic intervention that prevent, delay or reverse the formation of proteotoxic aggregates by stimulating protein homeostasis (aka, proteostasis) and neuroprotective factor(s), which promote the fitness and survival of neurons and supporting cells.

NeuroEgis is generating first-in-class small molecules which harness and modulate activities of substrates involved in protein degradation by the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), maintenance of proteostasis by selective chaperones, and/or stimulation of neuroprotective factors.

Collectively, the stimulations of these pro-survival and homeostatic activities hold therapeutic promise against adverse and primary effects of proteotoxicity and ensuing debilitating and life-threatening clinical manifestations associated with neurological illnesses and neurodegeneration.

NeuroEgis is poised to potentially transform the lives of patients afflicted by AMD and various forms of neurodegeneration and to bring transformative solutions to market.