River BioMedics was founded on a novel, human iPSC-derived, 3D cardiac strip platform which represents human heart function, in an in vitro setting. The technology allows direct effects on human cardiac tissue of modification of drug target activity, to be measured at the very beginning of the drug discovery process. River exploits this in-house technology to validate novel cardiac drug discovery targets, identified from human genome wide association studies (GWAS) in heart failure.
This combination of GWAS derived targets and human cardiac, functional validation, has the potential to greatly improve efficacy translation into the clinical setting. Products River BioMedics is discovering and developing novel therapies for cardiac disease, in particular heart failure. The company is taking a small molecule approach and selecting cardiac specific targets. The products of these activities will be development candidates suitable for licensing to biotech and pharma companies. Currently River BioMedics is running a hit finding campaign on their lead target.