Corsera Health’s Chief Operating Officer Rena Denoncourt and CFO Meredith Kaya speak with BioSpace about the biotech’s mission and vision for the next generation of cardiovascular care.
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What if cardiovascular disease prevention had a once-a-year solution? That’s the next-gen future that the executives at Corsera Health imagine.
The company, which is pairing therapeutics with a disease risk tool called Klotho, was named to BioSpace’s NextGen Class of 2026 list in Januaryas one of the most exciting up-and-coming biotechs in the industry. What caught our eye was this two-pronged approach and, of course, the potential for staving off a known killer with an annual treatment.
Chief Operating Officer Rena Denoncourt and CFO Meredith Kaya recently spoke with BioSpace about Corsera’s mission. Both are alumni of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the RNAi legend that pioneered the technology, bringing several medicines to market.
Corsera Co-CEO and founder John Maraganore is the former CEO of Alnylam. Rounding out the leadership team is Co-CEO Clive Meanwell, who is a serial biotech creator and managing partner of the private equity firm Population Health Partners. You may know him as one of the founders of obesity prize Metsera.
While it’s hard to talk about Corsera without mentioning Alnylam, Denoncourt and Kaya insist that this new venture is not just Alnylam 2.0. They are attempting to break new ground here. Corsera’s siRNA therapeutics were discovered with German partner Axolabs, combining two novel siRNAs into one product to prevent cardiovascular disease.
“It’s more about having a new way of looking at cardiovascular disease as something we can prevent, instead of something we need to wait and treat,” Denoncourt explained. “That, I think, is what’s really going to change the overall trajectory of cardiovascular health at the population scale.”
Corsera is currently in Phase 1 trials for COR-1004, a novel siRNA that targets PCSK9. This is the first component of the therapeutics program. COR-2003, which targets AGT, is expected to enter human testing later this year. Eventually, these two approaches will be paired in a once-a-year preventive treatment.
Corsera has arrived at a time when the biopharma industry is shifting toward more common, widespread diseases—helped by the proliferation of weight loss treatments from the likes of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. “All the stars are aligning,” Denoncourt said.
The biotech will also benefit from innovations in manufacturing and clinical trial execution, and the fact that RNAi is now a known entity. Corsera could even pursue a more consumer-focused commercial channel thanks to the ground paved by the weight loss juggernauts.
“We will not be constrained by the traditional ways of getting treatments to patients. We’ll be able to have a more nimble and disruptive way of getting the drug to large populations,” Denoncourt said.
Kaya heralded recent advancements in the cardiovascular space but said that much of that has been “too little, too late.” Heart disease is still a leading killer. Corsera seeks to change that by interrupting the disease process earlier in its course.
“We have all the tools that we need to execute, but we have to do it now,” she said.
