Targeting clinical trials in metabolic dysfunction in 2026, gene-silencing approach seeks to reprogram diseased cells to a healthy state.
Longevity biotech Junevity has doubled its seed financing to $20 million as it prepares to bring its first siRNA-based cell reprogramming therapy into the clinic. The San Francisco company, is developing treatments designed to reverse cellular dysfunction in age-related disease by selectively silencing transcription factors that drive metabolic decline, chronic inflammation and other hallmarks of aging.
After emerging with $10 million in funding earlier this year, Junevity today announced another $10 million injection, led by Goldcrest Capital and Godfrey Capital. The company said the funding will advance its lead candidate, JUN_01, through IND-enabling work in type 2 diabetes and obesity, with first-in-human studies expected in the second half of 2026.
Founded out of UCSF in 2023, Junevity is built on the premise that many complex diseases stem from wide-ranging transcriptional dysregulation. As tissues accumulate damage, gene networks that were once tightly coordinated become distorted, contributing to impaired mitochondrial function, increased inflammatory signaling, loss of proteostasis and other processes that erode healthspan. Junevity’s co-founder Dr Janine Sengstack showed in her work at UCSF that repressing a single transcription factor in human cell models could reset these patterns and restore a healthier state. That work seeded the development of the company’s discovery platform that seeks to identify new transcription factor targets and design siRNA molecules capable of modulating them with specificity.
While Junevity’s approach diverges from other partial reprogramming strategies based on the Yamanaka factors, the goal is essentially the same: to return cells to a younger, healthier state. Advances in machine learning have made it possible to map transcription factor networks with increased precision, while two decades of progress in RNA interference have paved the way for siRNA drugs that can silence genes at the mRNA level without requiring the structural druggability that many transcription factors lack. The company sees this convergence as a turning point: siRNA has matured as a therapeutic modality, and large-scale human transcriptional datasets now offer the resolution needed to identify targets linked to alterations in aging, disease progression and tissue health.
Junevity’s lead program, JUN_01, is an siRNA therapeutic aimed at an undisclosed transcription factor implicated in chronic metabolic dysfunction, insulin signaling and appetite regulation.
“By reprogramming metabolic tissue to a healthy state, we see profound and durable benefits beyond today’s standard of care.” said Junevity CEO John Hoekman.
In preclinical models, the company says JUN_01 has reprogrammed metabolic tissues toward profiles resembling those of younger, healthier animals – reducing blood glucose, improving insulin sensitivity, driving significant fat-selective weight loss and preserving lean mass.
“JUN_01 offers a unique and promising combination of improved insulin sensitivity and weight loss, with dosing every six months,” said Eli Lilly’s former chief marketing officer Dr John Bamforth, who is an advisor to Junevity. “This profile could fill an important need for effective and tolerable long-term diabetes and weight management either alone or in combination with GLP-1s.”
With GLP-1s already reshaping metabolic medicine and attracting attention for possible longevity benefits, Junevity aims to address some of the limitations associated with the drugs. The company’s preclinical data suggest that JUN_01 may mitigate the muscle loss, tolerability issues and weight recidivism observed in some GLP-1 users while offering a dosing schedule that could improve adherence.
Beyond metabolism, Junevity has a broader ambition of applying cell-resetting strategies across tissues affected by age-related disease. The company also has an interest in neurodegeneration, muscle wasting conditions such as cachexia and sarcopenia, and osteoarthritis, building on its framework for systematically restoring cellular homeostasis across organs affected by complex disease.
READ MORE: Does gene silencing technology hold the key to cellular rejuvenation?
