Vincere Biosciences

Vincere Biosciences is a biotechnology company focused on longevity. They aim to improve mitochondrial health to treat neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and other age-related conditions.

Parkinson’s is a degenerative brain condition. It leads to motor issues such as shaking, reduced movement speed, rigidity, and difficulties with balance. This happens when the brain’s dopamine-producing nerve cells cease functioning properly.

About Vincere Biosciences

Vincere is Latin for “to win,” referencing its mission to conquer age-related decline. Vincere is developing a portfolio of small-molecule drugs that inhibit the deubiquitinating enzyme USP30, thereby increasing the selective degradation of damaged mitochondria (mitophagy).

Mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to Parkinson’s disease, heart and kidney failure, and other age-related diseases. Mitophagy enhancers, like USP30 inhibitors, could be potential treatments for these difficult disorders.

Vincere is a spin out company of NeuroInitiative, LLC and was launched in October 2018. They have intellectual property and funding to bring their mitophagy-enhancing therapies to market. The CEO is Dr. Spring (Bahareh) Behrouz; its CSO is Dr. Kalpana Merchant, PhD.

Funding sources

In May 2019, they received a $1 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF). This grant was for discovering and developing small-molecule activators of Parkin. Parkin is a mitophagy regulator. Mutations in Parkin can cause young-onset genetic Parkinson’s disease.

In April 2020, it received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. This grant was from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). It was to help them to develop its USP30 inhibitors.

In 2021, Vincere won a Bristol Myers Squibb Golden Ticket. This gave them access to top incubator space and equipment.

In June 2022, Vincere got a $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Aging (NIA). This grant helped them to expand their work with mitophagy activators. They decided to use this to focus on cardiac aging and longevity.

Over the next few years, Vincere got larger grants from MJFF and NIH. It was a 2023 Sanofi Golden Ticket Finalist. Vincere also received investment and worked with Daewoong Pharmaceutical and HanAll Biopharma.

In May 2025, Vincere announced a new investment from Beiersdorf, a global skin care company. They will work together to create new skin care solutions. These solutions will focus on mitophagy to improve cell health and reduce skin aging.

Most recently, in October and November 2025, Vincere finished a Series A financing round. Healthspan Capital was one of the companies who took part in this round. They also received an additional $5 million grant from MJFF. This funding will help advance their USP30 inhibitors into human clinical trials.

USP30 Inhibitors

Several mechanisms regulate mitophagy — the selective degradation of damaged mitochondria — of which the best-understood is the PINK1-Parkin system. PINK1 (a mitochondrial kinase) detects non-functioning mitochondria and activates Parkin (an ubiquitin ligase). Parkin attaches chains of ubiquitin to proteins on the outer membrane of the damaged organelle. This tags the organelle for breakdown by lysosomes.

USP30 is a mitochondrial deubiquitinase. This means it removes ubiquitin molecules from the organelle’s surface. By doing this, it undoes the work of PINK1 and Parkin. This process also stops mitophagy, a form of mitochondrial quality control. Inhibiting USP30 has also been reported to increase mitochondrial quality control via mechanisms independent of the PINK1/Parkin system.

USP30 inhibitors can help remove defective mitochondria. This may restore energy production and other functions in cells with damaged mitochondria. This has therapeutic potential for Parkinson’s and other diseases of aging.

Unfortunately, Vincere has released very little information about its USP30 inhibitors. Vincere proposed studies on early models of heart aging in its first SBIR grant application awarded in 2022.

In 2023, the company got a second grant from SBIR and NINDS. This grant was for testing the pharmacokinetics of one of its USP30 inhibitors. They were studying its effects in models of Parkinson’s disease. However, no results from these studies appear to have been announced or reported.

At the 2023 Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease Conference, Vincere presented data on VB-08. VB-08 is “a small molecule with low nanomolar in vitro potency and high selectivity for USP30.”

The investigators found that VB-08 increased mitophagy in APRE-19 cells. It did so without damaging or depolarizing mitochondria or causing cell death. APRE-19 are a type of retinal pigment epithelium cells. Their failure is a key step in age-related macular degeneration.

The authors also noted that VB-08 can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). In early studies, it increased mitophagy in mice’s brains after 5 days of treatment. VB-08 was well-tolerated during this limited dosing window.

At the 2024 International Society of Nephrology World Congress of Nephrology (WCN), Vincere-affiliated scientists shared details about their candidate molecules. They reported having over 700 compounds that are optimized for different pharmacokinetic profiles. These candidates show more than 80-fold selectivity for USP30 compared to over 40 deubiquitinating enzymes.

These candidates selectively target the kidney and increased mitophagy in several human cell lines. In vivo studies in rats and mice showed that they reach therapeutic levels in the kidneys. The abstract is unclear exactly how many candidates this applies to.

One or more of these candidates lowered the severity of acute kidney injury (AKI) in several models. This effect was dose-dependent, whether given as prevention or as treatment after the injury.

At some unclear point, MJFF funded IND-enabling studies with one of Vincere’s USP30 inhibitors. They also supported work on developing biomarkers. This was to test its effects on cellular processes linked to mitophagy and Parkinson’s disease in humans.