Press Release: Cambrian Bio Awarded Up to $30.8 Million as part of ARPA-H's PROSPR Program to Advance a Novel mTORC1-Selective Inhibitor for Improving Intrinsic Capacity in Older People
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February 24, 2026
New York, New York — February 24, 2026 – Cambrian Bio, a clinical-stage drug development company whose pipeline platforms include therapeutics targeting critical metabolic pathways that decline with age, today announced that it has been awarded funding to support the development of its next-generation selective mTORC1 inhibitors from the PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) program within the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).
Cambrian’s TORnado platform has created a series of highly selective mTORC1 inhibitors designed to preserve the widely validated healthspan benefits of mTOR inhibition, while explicitly avoiding the side-effect liabilities associated with mTORC2 inhibition, resulting in a more favorable benefit-risk profile for preventative use.
Dysregulation of mTORC1 signaling is a key contributor to the universal metabolic decline observed with aging, and addressing this imbalance at its source may help preserve intrinsic capacity, a measure of overall physical and metabolic resilience that declines over time and predicts healthspan. In doing so, the program aligns with ARPA-H’s focus on enabling fundamentally new approaches to human health and overcoming long-standing limitations in the field.
“We’re so excited to work with ARPA-H & PROSPR to explore the potential of our TORnado platform in preventing disease and increasing intrinsic capacity,” said James Peyer, CEO and Founder of Cambrian Bio. “We founded Cambrian to lay the groundwork for treating some of today’s most debilitating diseases at the molecular level, before they cause disease. Improving intrinsic capacity is the perfect expression of that mission, yet no drug development effort has ever attempted to target it. PROSPR is the first. Efforts like this are what allow us to push into new frontiers of medicine.”
Metabolic decline is one of the most universal changes that occur with aging. Cambrian is tackling metabolic decline through multiple approaches across its pipeline, with the TORnado platform targeting age-related deficiencies in nutrient-sensing and the Amplifier Therapeutics platform targeting deficiencies in energy production through activation of AMPK and mitochondrial respiration. Together, these efforts reflect an integrated approach to supporting metabolic health during both aging and in the context of cardiometabolic disease.
“The aging field has hotly debated mTORC inhibition because while existing drugs extend healthspan in animals, their low specificity comes with risks in humans,” says Andrew Brack, ARPA-H Program Manager and creator of the PROSPR program. “That's why we're particularly excited to see the results of this new, specific mTORC1 inhibitor during the PROSPR program.”
About Cambrian Bio
Cambrian Bio is a clinical-stage drug development company focused on building therapeutics to treat and ultimately prevent some of today’s most debilitating chronic diseases, including platforms targeting critical metabolic pathways that decline with age such as AMPK, mitochondrial activation, and MTOR. To learn more, visit www.CambrianBio.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
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Claudia Pareja