NVS vs PLRX

Novartis AG

Novartis AG researches, develops, manufactures, and markets healthcare products worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Innovative Medicines and Sandoz. The Innovative Medicines segment offers prescription medicines for patients and healthcare providers. It also provides ophthalmology, neuroscience, immunology, hepatology and dermatology, respiratory, established, and cardiovascular, renal and metabolism medicine products. The Sandoz segment provides active ingredients and finished dosage forms of small molecule pharmaceuticals to third parties across a range of therapeutic areas, as well as finished dosage form anti-infectives. It also provides active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates primarily antibiotics; protein- or other biotechnology-based products, including biosimilars; and biotechnology manufacturing services. Novartis AG has a license and collaboration agreement with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals to develop, manufacture, and commercialize inclisiran; an agreement with CureVac to manufacture COVID-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV; a collaboration with Artios Pharma Limited to create next generation DDR cancer therapies; and a clinical collaboration with Kura Oncology, Inc. to evaluate the combination of Tipifarnib and Alpelisib in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.

Pliant Therapeutics Inc.

Pliant Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers, develops, and commercializes novel therapies for the treatment of fibrosis and related diseases in the United States. Its lead product candidate is PLN-74809, an oral small-molecule dual selective inhibitor of avß6 and avß1 integrins, which is in Phase II single ascending dose/multiple ascending dose trails and completed Phase Ib proof-of-mechanism trials for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and primary sclerosing cholangitis. The company also develops PLN-1474, a small-molecule selective inhibitor of avß1, which completed Phase 1 clinical trial for the treatment of liver fibrosis associated with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. In addition, it is developing two additional preclinical integrin-based programs, which include an oncology program, as well as a program for an allosteric agonistic monoclonal antibody against an undisclosed integrin receptor for treatment of muscular dystrophies, including duchenne muscular dystrophy. Pliant Therapeutics, Inc. was founded in 2015 and is based in South San Francisco, California.