March 26, 2020

Bernard Coulie, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Pliant Therapeutics, Inc.
260 Littlefield Avenue
South San Francisco, CA 94080

       Re: Pliant Therapeutics, Inc.
           Amendment No. 3 to
           Draft Registration Statement on Form S-1
           Submitted March 16, 2020
           CIK No. 0001746473

Dear Dr. Coulie:

      We have reviewed your amended draft registration statement and have the
following
comments. In some of our comments, we may ask you to provide us with
information so we
may better understand your disclosure.

       Please respond to this letter by providing the requested information and
either submitting
an amended draft registration statement or publicly filing your registration
statement on
EDGAR. If you do not believe our comments apply to your facts and circumstances
or do not
believe an amendment is appropriate, please tell us why in your response.

      After reviewing the information you provide in response to these comments
and your
amended draft registration statement or filed registration statement, we may
have additional
comments.

Amendment No. 3 to Draft Registration Statement on Form S-1

Prospectus Summary, page 1

1.     We note that you added up to three early stage targets for various
unidentified indications
       to your pipeline table. We also note that the only other discussion of
these targets in the
       prospectus is limited to the terms of your agreement with Novartis for a
three year
       research program. As such, please tell us why you believe it is
appropriate to include
       these unidentified research program targets in your pipeline table or
remove them from the
       table.
 Bernard Coulie, M.D., Ph.D.
Pliant Therapeutics, Inc.
March 26, 2020
Page 2


Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of
Operations
Overview, page 80

2.       In the second paragraph you disclose that you expect to receive $33.0
million in research
         and development funding and are eligible to receive development,
regulatory and
         commercial milestones of up to $416.0 million under your Collaboration
and License
         Agreement with Novartis. Please reconcile for us the following
apparent discrepancies
         with other disclosures in your filing and revise your disclosures
accordingly:
           In the penultimate paragraph on page F-19 in Note 6 you disclose
that the transaction
              price at inception of this agreement includes only $19.6 million
of variable
              consideration in the form of research and development funding
when it appears that
              you expect to receive $33.0 million.
           In the sixth paragraph on page 140 in Business you disclose the
existence of up to
              $200.0 million in development and commercialization milestones
for the licensed
              products and up to $68.0 million for the research targets. This
disclosure is silent
              on regulatory milestones and it is unclear whether such
milestones represent the
              apparent $148.0 million difference.
Item 15. Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
(b) Grants and Exercises of Stock Options and Restricted Stock, page II-3

3.       You disclose the granting of 14,181,083 stock options and 4,055,136
shares of restricted
         stock since January 1, 2017. It appears that the 14.2 million amount
disclosed as stock
         option grants may include your restricted grants. In this regard it
appears that when
         subtracting the option grants as disclosed on page F-28 from the 14.2
million amount the
         exact number of restricted share grants remains. If so, please revise
your disclosure to
         clarify that the 14.2 million amount includes restricted stock grants.
If not, please revise
         your subsequent events disclosure to include the option grants in 2020
and ensure you
         address those grants in your response to prior comment 4 from our June
6, 2019 letter.
       You may contact Mark Brunhofer at 202-551-3638 or Sharon Blume at
202-551-3474 if
you have questions regarding comments on the financial statements and related
matters. Please
contact Julia Griffith at 202-551-3267 or Justin Dobbie at 202-551-3469 with
any other
questions.



FirstName LastNameBernard Coulie, M.D., Ph.D.                   Sincerely,
Comapany NamePliant Therapeutics, Inc.
                                                                Division of
Corporation Finance
March 26, 2020 Page 2                                           Office of Life
Sciences
FirstName LastName