Award will support key preclinical and manufacturing activities designed to advance the program toward a future Investigational New Drug application
CHICAGO, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inomagen Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering a non-viral gene therapy to improve the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF), has been awarded a $2.9 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the NHLBI of the National Institutes of Health to support preclinical and manufacturing activities for the company's proprietary investigational plasmid-based therapy. The two-year award provides approximately $1.4 million in first-year funding and up to $2.9 million in total support, subject to satisfactory progress of the program and the availability of NIH funds, for the project titled "A New and Disruptive Gene Based Therapy for Atrial Fibrillation".
"Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder, affecting 10 million people in the U.S. alone and carrying a fivefold increased risk of stroke," said Rishi Arora, MD, Founder and CEO of Inomagen Therapeutics. "Current treatments including medications and cardiac ablation have suboptimal efficacy for many patients with AF, particularly those with more advanced or 'persistent' AF. Inomagen's novel gene therapy approach is being developed to provide a more effective treatment for these patients."
Inomagen has identified molecular mechanisms that contribute to AF and developed therapeutic transgenes designed to target these mechanisms. The company has developed a proprietary catheter-based electroporation platform to facilitate non-viral gene delivery to cardiac tissue, and has demonstrated attenuation of AF in clinically relevant preclinical studies.
This NIH grant award supports continued program advancement by further characterizing dose response and safety in preclinical studies; producing a fully characterized plasmid product under GMP-compatible manufacturing conditions; and evaluating therapeutic efficacy in a preclinical model of AF. Together, these activities will support a future Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The award builds on previous NIH SBIR support of Inomagen's AF program, a $3.67 million grant awarded in 2021.
"Our goal is to address an underlying molecular mechanism that contributes to atrial fibrillation," said Dr. Arora. "Our approach is non-ablative and designed to reduce NOX2 expression and the oxidative stress that contributes to atrial remodeling in AF. Combined with our non-viral gene delivery platform, the approach can be transformative in the field of gene therapy."
"We are grateful for the continued support of the NIH and its commitment to advancing innovative therapies for patients with atrial fibrillation," said Eric Sandberg, President and Chief Operating Officer of Inomagen Therapeutics. "This funding brings us another step closer to our goal of providing a durable, disease-modifying therapy to improve outcomes and quality of life for millions of patients living with AF worldwide."
Inomagen's investigational therapy is currently in preclinical development and has not yet been tested in humans or approved by the FDA for patient use.
About Inomagen Therapeutics
Inomagen Therapeutics is a privately-held biotechnology company developing gene therapies for cardiovascular disease, initially focused on atrial fibrillation. Its lead program combines a novel non-viral gene therapy with a catheter-based delivery platform designed to deliver therapeutic genetic material to cardiac tissue, with the goal of developing durable, disease-modifying therapies for patients with atrial fibrillation. For more information, visit www.inomagen.com.
About NIH Support
Research to be conducted for this project will be supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44HL187127. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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SOURCE Inomagen Therapeutics
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