Nura Raises $73.8 Million to Advance Novel ALS Strategy

Rare Daily Staff

Nura Bio said it raised $73.8 million in series B financing and began clinical testing of two experimental SARM1 inhibitors, aiming to establish axon protection as a disease-modifying strategy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative conditions.

The Column Group led the round with participation from Euclidean Capital, Samsara BioCapital, and Sanofi Ventures.

The company said the funding will be used to establish clinical proof-of-biology studies for its SARM1 inhibitor pipeline, including an ongoing phase 1b/2a ALS trial of its lead candidate NB-4746.

Nura Bio has dosed the first ALS patient in a phase 1b/2a study of NB-4746, an oral, brain-penetrant small molecule that reversibly inhibits SARM1, a neuronal NAD hydrolase and central driver of axon degeneration. In preclinical models of nerve injury and disease, including ALS models, NB-4746 prevented SARM1-driven axon degeneration and conferred neuroprotection.

In a prior phase 1 study in healthy volunteers, the drug showed a favorable safety profile and achieved target exposure levels in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.

Barrow Neurological Institute neurologist Jeremy Shefner said Nura Bio has been “at the forefront” of SARM1-targeted neuroprotective drug development and called the advance into ALS patient studies an important step toward understanding whether SARM1 inhibition can provide therapeutic benefit in the disease.

The company has also initiated dosing in a first-in-human phase 1a study of NB-9402, described as a next-generation, first-in-class oral covalent allosteric SARM1 inhibitor. NB-9402 has demonstrated high potency and durable activity in preclinical models of neurological disease, and is designed as a mechanistically differentiated, irreversible allosteric inhibitor relative to NB-4746’s reversible orthosteric profile. Nura Bio expects the phase 1a study in healthy volunteers to complete in 2026.

Shilpa Sambashivan, CEO of Nura said having both NB-4746 and NB-9402 in the clinic positions the company to “fully explore and validate the broad therapeutic potential” of SARM1 inhibition across neurological indications, and emphasized the company’s focus on developing “transformative” neuroprotective therapies.

SARM1 has emerged as a key axon-intrinsic metabolic sensor and central driver of programmed axon degeneration, an early hallmark across multiple neurological diseases. Nura Bio’s strategy is to intervene upstream by halting axon degeneration to provide structural and functional neuroprotection in diseases of the central, peripheral, and ocular nervous systems.

Beyond its two clinical SARM1 inhibitors, the company’s broader small-molecule pipeline focuses on agents that either block axon degeneration or modulate microglial responses to injury and degeneration, with the goal of achieving disease modification across a range of neurodegenerative conditions.