Jane Neurotherapeutics JNTX

Treat the cancer.
Spare the nerves.

JNTX-007 is a small molecule that protects and restores sensation in chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy — the untreated nerve damage left behind in millions of cancer survivors. Preclinical, and heading for the clinic.

Two people forming a heart shape with their hands

The problem

Each year, millions of people on chemo face an impossible choice

Keep the dose and lose the feeling in your hands and feet — often for good. Or cut the dose, and accept a higher risk that the cancer comes back. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a decision made on toxicity rather than tumour response, and there is nothing approved to treat it.

A nurse and patient beside a chemotherapy drip and a wilting plant
Stop or reduce the dose of chemotherapy — and risk the cancer coming back.

or

A man with numb, tingling hands and feet reaching for a spoon
Tingling and loss of sensation in hands and feet — for the rest of your life.
9.8M

patients start first-line chemotherapy worldwide every year.

68%

develop peripheral neuropathy within a month of neurotoxic chemotherapy.

30%

still have CIPN six months or more after treatment ends.

0 approved

drugs prevent or reverse it — only symptomatic options such as duloxetine exist.

CIPN time course: Seretny et al., Pain 2014 (31 studies, 4,179 patients). Persistence corroborated at 31.3% up to 5 years post-oxaliplatin (Selvy et al., J Clin Med 2020, n=406). Chemotherapy demand: Wilson et al., Lancet Oncol 2019.

An oncology consultation

In the clinic

Patients hide the neuropathy to protect their treatment

“I can barely feel my hands anymore. But if I tell her, she'll stop the therapy — and the cancer could come back.” The damage goes unspoken, until it's permanent. One survivor put it plainly: chronic numbness means needing help to open a can or turn a page, and the hardest part is the loss of competence.

See how we fix it

Our approach

A nerve-protective drug, given alongside chemotherapy

JNTX-007 is a small-molecule HDAC inhibitor that restores the protective acetylation of microtubules in sensory neurons — preserving sensation while chemotherapy proceeds at full dose. It works two axes at a single exposure, which is what separates it from every other HDAC programme in neuropathy.

Axonal transport in a sensory neuron

Swipe to follow the axon →

Chemotherapy strips acetyl groups from α-tubulin. The microtubule track destabilises, transport stalls, and the far ends of the nerve — the fingertips and toes — are starved of the cargo they need. Sensation is lost from the outside in.

Repair the wiring

Restores α-tubulin acetylation, axonal transport and mitochondrial trafficking — the structural, disease-modifying mechanism.

Axis 01 · HDAC6

Quiet the circuit

Anti-inflammatory action that calms sensitised neurons, addressing the pain component alongside the structural repair.

Axis 02 · Class I HDACs

Evidence

It works — from human cells to live animals

JNTX-007 hits its molecular targets in human cells, and that translates into recovered sensation in the disease model. Both results are in hand, alongside clean genotoxicity.

Ac-histone H3 · Class I Ac-α-tubulin · HDAC6 01234 0510510 JNTX-007JNTX-028 Concentration (µM) Fold change versus control

Target engagement

Acetylation rose on both axes in human cells, concentration-dependently — confirming JNTX-007 reaches HDAC6 and the Class I enzymes at one exposure.

Both axes at one exposureHDAC1 70 nM · HDAC6 200 nM
0204060 26%43%58% JNTX-028RicolinostatJNTX-007 30 mg/kg10 mg/kg3 mg/kg Median maximal possible effect (%)

Functional reversal

In paclitaxel-induced neuropathy in rats, sensation returned at matched safety margins — outperforming ricolinostat.

In vivo proof of conceptRat MTD 30 mg/kg

Genotoxicity

Ames-negative and micronucleus-negative, both non-GLP, with GLP confirmation scheduled in the toxicology package.

Clean

Intellectual property

Fully-owned composition-of-matter filing. A freedom-to-operate search found no blocking art.

Composition of matter

Competitive lane

No approved CIPN therapy exists. To date, JNTX-007 is the only HDAC programme built specifically for CIPN.

Open field

Paclitaxel-induced neuropathy in rats · von Frey · log-transformed PWT · n = 10/group · dosed IP at 1/10th of MTD for JNTX-028 and JNTX-007. Ricolinostat 10 mg/kg IP was selected to approximate its published rat exposure (28-day oral NOAEL 120 mg/kg, MTD not reached; 11–19% rodent oral bioavailability).


Team

Who we are

A founding team spanning medicinal chemistry, pharmacokinetics and finance, supported by advisors in in-vivo pharmacology, IP and clinical oncology.

Martijn Zwinderman

Martijn Zwinderman, PhD

Founder & Project Lead

Drives the programme from discovery to the clinic.

Winant Zwinderman

Winant Zwinderman

Founder & Finance

Runs finance, operations and fundraising.

With Ian Robinson (in vivo models), Annemiek Tepper, PhD (IP & legal), Janine Nuver, PhD (oncologist) and Jan Hendriks (investor).

Janneke Zwinderman

Jane

Named after Janneke

Janneke Zwinderman beat triple-negative breast cancer — twice, in 2008 and 2021. The cancer is gone. The neuropathy never left.

Jane Neurotherapeutics was founded by her sons. No one should have to choose between surviving cancer and keeping the feeling in their hands — that's the company we're building.