Liver rejuvenation program produces a ‘lead payload’ as biotech begins its journey towards human clinical trials.
After several years of development, longevity biotech NewLimit claims it is nearing its first “clinic-bound” epigenetic reprogramming medicine – a therapeutic payload designed to restore youthful function in hepatocytes (liver cells). In a recent update, head of research Jacob C Kimmel said the company plans to advance its candidate into human clinical studies in the next few years.
Co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, NewLimit was created to develop medicines that increase the number of healthy years in human life by targeting aging itself rather than treating individual diseases in isolation. Comparable to the likes of Altos Labs and Life Biosciences, the company’s scientific strategy is built around epigenetic reprogramming, an approach that seeks to reset the gene-control systems inside cells that deteriorate with age.
As epigenetic regulation breaks down over time, cells lose their specialized functions and become more susceptible to disease. By identifying combinations of transcription factors capable of restoring youthful gene-expression patterns, NewLimit aims to reverse these changes and recover lost cellular function. The company’s long-term objective is to build a portfolio of interventions that address the biological mechanisms of aging directly, with the potential to affect multiple age-related diseases at once.
Over the past year, NewLimit has moved from broad discovery into late-stage preclinical engineering for its lead liver program. The company says it has identified more than 20 transcription factor sets that restore youthful phenotypes in aged hepatocytes, drawn from a cumulative testing effort of more than 3,000 transcription factor combinations across multiple programs.
Kimmel revealed that, in September, one lead payload was selected for progression into advanced development, triggering a formal lead-optimization campaign centered on mRNA engineering. The optimized liver product is now being evaluated across a range of preclinical models as it moves toward formal development.
In October, the company also validated two additional payloads that emerged from in vivo hepatocyte screens, both of which demonstrated the ability to restore youthful resilience in aged liver cells. In diet-induced injury models, these payloads significantly reduced circulating biomarkers of liver damage, suggesting that treated hepatocytes were more resistant to stress.
“We’ve continued to discover new payloads like this month after month,” said Kimmel. “These results give us confidence that our engine can produce more and more discoveries over time.”
The liver is not NewLimit’s only area of focus, and it has also made progress programs targeting the immune system and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels and play a critical role in tissue nourishment and repair. In its immune program, the company has generated transcription factor payloads that rejuvenate aged human T cells, while its early experiments in endothelial cells now serve as the foundation for future discovery efforts in vascular aging.
Earlier this year, NewLimit raised $130 million in a Series B funding round, and recently followed that up with an additional $45 million raise from Eli Lilly and Company, Duke Management Co, Section 32, and others, reportedly valuing the company at $1.62 billion. Having previously secured a $40 million Series A and an initial $110 million founding investment, the startup has one of the largest war chests in the longevity biotechnology sector.