Leveraging the body’s natural defense mechanisms to control Rheumatoid Arthritis joint pain and tissue damage

Rheumatoid Arthritis is an auto-immune disease that causes disabling joint pain and mobility loss.  Any joint can be affected.  Over 70 million people worldwide have Rheumatoid Arthritis, with the disease striking women three times more often than men.

Because there is no cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis, the goal of treatment is to control the disease by suppressing the body’s immune system.  However, even with immune suppression, active disease re-emerges in many people, causing painful and debilitating “flares”.

During disease flares, the synovium, a normally thin membrane that lines the joint space, begins to grow uncontrollably.  Since the cellular changes that drive synovial overgrowth are mediated by mechanisms distinct from immune system dysfunction, immune suppressive therapy does not always adequately control it.  If not stopped, synovial overgrowth forms a tissue mass that invades the joint and ultimately destroys it.

DeMay Bio’s goal is to develop an adjunct therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis that targets joint synovial overgrowth.  Our approach is focusing on a naturally-produced human protein that suppresses cellular growth in a completely novel way.  By leveraging a natural defense mechanism already used by our own bodies, we believe we can design an optimized biomimetic product that will be both effective and safe in controlling synovial overgrowth in Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Our product could ultimately have platform application in other conditions involving uncontrolled growth, such as cancer.