Company Description

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery and development of regulatory RNA-based therapeutics with the goal of upregulating gene expression and restoring healthy protein levels to treat a broad range of genetic diseases. Regulatory RNAs, or regRNAs, play a central role in the regulation of every protein-coding gene by contributing to gene activation and suppression. Our approach is designed to amplify messenger RNA, or mRNA, expression by harnessing the power of regRNAs that form localized complexes with transcription factors and regulate gene expression. Our proprietary RNA Actuating Platform, or RAP Platform, allows us to rapidly and systematically identify and characterize the active regulatory elements controlling every expressed gene and tens of thousands of druggable enhancer and promoter regRNA sequences that control protein-coding genes. Once a disease-associated target gene is identified, we apply our RAP Platform to identify the controlling regRNA and rapidly generate novel antisense oligonucleotide, or ASO, candidates, which we also refer to as RNA Actuators. These ASOs are designed to bind to the identified regRNA and amplify the expression of the target gene in a specific and controllable way. We are initially focused on metabolic and central nervous system, or CNS, diseases with validated disease biology, and we believe our RAP Platform allows us to address a broad range of genetic diseases in which a modest increase in protein expression can be clinically meaningful. Based on our preclinical studies, we believe our lead product candidate, CMP-CPS-001, has the potential to be the first disease-modifying therapy for the treatment of the most prevalent urea cycle disorders, or UCDs. UCDs are a group of severe, inherited metabolic diseases caused by mutations in the genes that encode one or more of the eight enzymes and transporters necessary to convert ammonia into urea. The inability of the body to properly metabolize ammonia leads to the accumulation of toxic levels in circulation, ultimately resulting in severe health outcomes, such as neurologic disability, seizure and death. CMP-CPS-001 is designed to improve urea cycle activity by amplifying expression of carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1, or CPS1, an enzyme that catalyzes the first step of the urea cycle, by binding to a CPS1-specific regRNA. Our preclinical studies have demonstrated that modulating the activity of the target regRNA increases expression of the CPS1 gene, resulting in increased CPS1 enzyme levels, which allows for more ammonia to be converted into urea, thereby lowering ammonia levels to normal, healthy ranges. These preclinical studies also demonstrated that CMP-CPS-001 can increase the level of, or upregulate, the production of multiple enzymes responsible for converting ammonia into urea, potentially allowing us to address more than 85% of patients with UCDs, which we refer to as our pan-UCD approach. We are in the early stages of development and are evaluating CMP-CPS-001 in an ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers and expect to report data from all four cohorts of the single ascending dose, or SAD, portion of the trial in the first quarter of 2025 and from the multiple ascending dose, or MAD, portion of the trial in the second half of 2025. We are also leveraging our RAP Platform to advance our first preclinical program for the treatment of synaptic Ras GTPase activating protein 1, or SYNGAP1,-related disorders. We expect to initiate final Good Laboratory Practice, or GLP, toxicology studies in our SYNGAP1 program in 2025 to enable the filing of clinical trial applications. The transcription of DNA into mRNA, the molecular template that is then translated into protein, is a complex yet carefully coordinated cellular process involving numerous components. Only a small portion of the DNA in the human genome is transcribed into RNA that codes for proteins. The vast majority of the transcriptome originates from non-coding regions of DNA, a portion of which, referred to as enhancers and promoters, perform a crucial role in determining the specificity, timing and level at which a particular gene is expressed. RegRNAs are non-coding RNAs that are transcribed by these enhancer and promoter DNA regions that form localized complexes with transcription factors to control the expression of protein-coding genes, either increasing or decreasing their expression within natural physiological ranges. The approximately 20,000 genes that code for mRNA in the human genome are controlled by hundreds of thousands of DNA enhancers and their associated regRNAs. Deficient protein levels characterize over a thousand diseases. Haploinsufficient diseases are dominantly inherited conditions in which inadequate gene expression is driven by a mutation in a single allele, or gene copy, and results in reductions of protein levels by as much as 50%. Numerous other genetic conditions are caused by recessive mutations that result in diminished gene activity. Data from our preclinical studies and research reports published by third parties demonstrate that increasing expression of disease-associated genes by modest amounts can restore healthy protein levels and provide therapeutic benefit in these disorders. Therefore, modest increases in protein expression have the potential to be clinically meaningful in both haploinsufficient and recessive partial loss-of-function disorders, of which there are more than 1,200. Our RAP Platform has the potential to identify the regRNA associated with all of these diseases, which we believe enables us to design RNA Actuators to address the underlying biology of these diseases. We aim to leverage our RAP Platform to develop product candidates designed to regulate transcription in a gene-specific manner to restore healthy protein levels and remedy these diseases. However, our approach is unproven and may not lead to successful efforts to develop and commercialize our product candidates and to identify and discover additional potential product candidates. --- We were originally incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware in 2015 under the name Marauder Therapeutics, Inc. and began operations in 2016. We changed our name to CAMP4 Therapeutics Corporation in March 2018. Our principal executive offices are located at One Kendall Square, Building 1400 West, 3rd Floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 and our telephone number is (617) 651-8867. Our website address is www.camp4tx.com.