Jacaranda Bioscience, Inc., a San Francisco-based biotech, has received a USD 1.44 million SBIR Phase II award from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to advance small molecule therapeutics for noise-induced hearing loss, according to NIH Reporter. The grant, funded under mechanism R44, runs through April 2027 and targets a condition with no approved pharmacological treatments, despite affecting an estimated 10-15% of Americans aged 20 to 69.
The company's lead candidate, JBI-015, along with backup compounds JBI-016 and JBI-028, act on the unfolded protein response pathway through eIF2B activation—an approach the company says has not previously been applied to hearing loss. Phase II funding will support medicinal chemistry optimization, ADME and pharmacokinetic studies, oral formulation work, and in vivo efficacy and toxicity testing, with the stated goal of generating a data package to support an eventual Investigational New Drug application and first-in-human Phase I trial. The work remains preclinical; no clinical efficacy or safety data have been generated to date.
The Phase II award supports continued preclinical development following earlier SBIR funding, with work focused on generating the data required for an IND submission. Noise-induced hearing loss has drawn renewed attention following a USD 5.5 billion settlement between 3M and the US military over earplug litigation, underscoring the scale of occupational and military exposure driving the condition. Principal investigator Russell Dahl leads the program alongside co-investigator Malek Chouchane. If successful, JBI-015 could become among the first unfolded protein response-targeted therapies to enter clinical testing for noise-induced hearing loss, although translation from preclinical models remains uncertain.
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