Trethera Secures $1.8 Million NIH Funding To Accelerate TRE-515 Program For Crohn’s Disease

Trethera Corporation, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the company a $1.8 million grant to support preclinical studies of TRE-515 for the treatment of Crohn’s disease. TRE-515, Trethera’s lead drug candidate, is a once-daily oral therapy that inhibits deoxycytidine kinase (dCK), an enzyme involved in the deoxyribonucleoside salvage pathway that drives abnormal cell proliferation in autoimmune diseases, including Crohn’s.

This new grant builds on a previous $400,000 NIH award for Crohn’s research and follows promising preclinical data presented at the 2025 Crohn’s & Colitis Congress. The findings showed that TRE-515 outperformed Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara by selectively limiting activated CD4 T-cell proliferation, effectively blocking inflammatory bowel disease symptoms in mouse models. Dr. Ken Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Trethera, highlighted that the continued NIH support validates the company’s innovative strategy of targeting dCK, a key metabolic vulnerability in autoreactive immune cells, and reinforces the development of TRE-515 as a first-in-class therapy for patients with high unmet needs.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract that affects over one million Americans and is characterized by diarrhea, fatigue, severe abdominal pain, weight loss, recurring flares, and persistent intestinal inflammation. Up to one-third of patients do not respond to first-line therapies, and nearly half lose response within five years, underscoring the need for new treatment options.

The NIH peer review panel noted that TRE-515 is the only dCK inhibitor in development, describing the approach as highly innovative. The panel also highlighted strong preliminary data showing TRE-515 is comparable to current standard-of-care therapies, has a favorable safety profile, is not strongly immunosuppressive, and offers the convenience of oral administration, making it particularly attractive. 

In addition to Crohn’s disease, TRE-515 is being evaluated in Phase 1 clinical trials for solid tumors and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). With its potential across both cancer and inflammatory diseases, TRE-515 represents a broad development program aimed at transforming patient outcomes.