Our Vision

Early intervention to combat viral infections

Red Queen Therapeutics is a clinical-stage company working to deliver important and accessible treatment options for a broad range of virus-borne illnesses including influenzas, coronaviruses, and other current and emerging pathogens.

Approach and Advantages

Red Queen develops therapeutics based on a novel stapled lipopeptide platform technology that blocks virus-cell fusion—the way in which all enveloped viruses, including many of the most dangerous human pathogens, enter cells. As the viral load increases, illness ensues and the likelihood of transmission to others grows. Our stapled lipopeptides are designed to arrest this process, thereby halting disease progression, decreasing transmission and ultimately hastening viral clearance.

Red Queen’s stapled lipopeptide fusion inhibitors represent a new mode of early intervention that offers important advantages beyond available therapies. Our antiviral therapies are designed to:

  • Prevent viral entry and enable accelerated viral clearance
  • Act upon a core mechanism of the virus, without relying upon immune system activation to work (lending them to use in immunocompromised people)
  • Work across entire viral families and pose a high barrier to emergence of resistance
  • Maintain shelf stability at room temperature for at least a year
  • Be formulated as nasal spray, inhaler, or injection, for quick and easy self-administration anytime, anywhere

Groundbreaking Science, Versatile Platform

Our novel antiviral platform is built on pioneering research conducted at the Walensky Lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute under the leadership of Red Queen scientific co-founder Loren Walensky, MD, PhD and translated into a clinically tested therapeutic solution by Red Queen scientists.

Phase 1 trial results for Red Queen’s lead program RQ-01, administered intranasally in COVID-19 patients, showed placebo-like safety and evidence of efficacy, with accelerated viral clearance across multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants. These results offer proof-of-concept in humans for Red Queen’s antiviral platform.

Our platform, based on stapled lipopeptide mimics, can be rapidly customized and deployed against a broad range of viruses.

Our therapeutic platform is built on novel stapled helical peptide chemistry

2. Insert non-natural
     amino acids

3. Chemically "staple" the peptide

  • Restores alpha-helical
    structure to bioactive peptides
  • Confers proteolytic resistance

1. Unstructured peptide

  • Loss of functional shape
  • Easily degraded
  • Poor pharmacology

4. Stapled peptide

  • Stabilized structure
  • Not degraded
  • Tissue persistence

Publications & Presentations

Hydrocarbon double-stapling remedies the proteolytic instability of a lengthy peptide therapeutic (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 2010)

Distinct BimBH3 (BimSAHB) stapled peptides for structural and cellular studies (ACS Chemical Biology, January 2014)

Hydrocarbon-stapled peptides: principles, practice, and progress (Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, March 2014)

Mucosal delivery of a double-stapled RSV peptide prevents nasopulmonary infection (Journal of Clinical Investigation, April 2014)

A stapled lipopeptide platform for preventing and treating highly pathogenic viruses of pandemic potential (Nature Communications, January 2024)

Phase 1 Study of Intranasal Fusion Inhibitor RQ-01 for the Treatment of COVID-19 (ASM Microbe 2024 poster presentation, June 2024)

Because Red Queen antiviral therapies do not depend upon immune system activation — but instead act on the virus itself to inhibit the progression of viral infection and accelerate viral clearance — they offer a potentially valuable new treatment option for immunocompromised patients.

Pipeline

Red Queen is advancing programs across a range of viral diseases.

PROGRAM

INDICATION

DISCOVERY

PRECLINICAL

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

RQ-01

SARS-CoV-2

RQ-02

RSV / hMPV / PIV*

RQ-03**

Pan-Influenza

RQ-04

Herpes

* PIV-1, PIV-2, PIV-3, PIV-4, RSV (A and B), hMPV (A and B)

** BARDA-supported program

Red Queen lipopeptides are designed to be used as monotherapy or in combination with each other and/or other antivirals. They are amenable to a variety of administration routes including, among others, nasal and pulmonary.

Our Team

Leadership

Mark Mitchnick, MD

President, Chief Executive Officer and Treasurer

Paul Eisenberg, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Paul Da Silva Jardine, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Board of Directors

Seth Harrison, MD

Seth Harrison, MD

Paul Da Silva Jardine, PhD
Spiros Liras, PhD

Spiros Liras, PhD

Mark Mitchnick, MD

Loren Walensky, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisory Board

Loren Walensky, MD, PhD

Scientific Founder and Advisor

Gregory Bird, PhD

Scientific Advisor

News

November 22, 2024

Licensed Antiviral Peptide Platform Leads to New Therapeutic Agents and Positive Early Clinical Results (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Fall 2024 Newsletter)

October 28, 2024

Red Queen: A new approach to viral fusion proteins (BioCentury Emerging Company Profile)

August 6, 2024

Apple Tree Partners Launches Red Queen Therapeutics to Bring Potentially Lifesaving Treatments to People at Greatest Risk from Viral Infections

January 5, 2024

Novel compound protects against infection by virus that causes COVID-19, preliminary studies show

Contact Us

If you are interested in learning more about Red Queen or would like to collaborate with us, please reach out below.

Please be aware that emails from any domain other than @redqueentx.com purporting to be from Red Queen Therapeutics (whether “job offers” or other communications) were not sent by Red Queen Therapeutics and are likely scams. Please do not reply to such messages or provide any personal information in response to them. There is no need to report the messages to Red Queen Therapeutics.

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