Two buzzy, well-funded biotech startups are combining in a bid to create a powerhouse at the bleeding edge of genetic medicines.
Orna Therapeutics announced Thursday that it would acquire ReNAgade Therapeutics in an all-equity transaction. The combined company will focus on RNA therapies that can reprogram blood and immune cells directly inside the body. If such in vivo approaches work, they could replace expensive and cumbersome cell therapies, including CAR-T therapies used to treat cancer and the new gene editing therapy for sickle cell disease.
The deal will combine two of the better-funded RNA companies launched in recent years. Orna has raised $331 million since 2021 to develop circular RNA medicines that hope to be more durable and effective than the traditional linear mRNA employed by Moderna and others. ReNAgade emerged from stealth exactly one year ago with $300 million to develop a gamut of RNA-based medicines and new lipid nanoparticles that could shuttle them beyond the liver, where most existing nanoparticles get stuck.
Both startups were backed by life science investor MPM BioImpact. And Orna has been licensing lipid nanoparticles from other companies, while ReNAgade has licensed Orna’s circular RNA. Both companies are based in the Boston area.
With Orna licensing such lipid nanoparticles from other companies, and ReNAgade licensing Orna’s circular RNA, the two startups realized they’d be better off together.
“Why compete with each other?” Orna CEO Tom Barnes said in an interview with Endpoints News.
The acquisition comes at a time when funding is hard to find for biotech startups, especially early-stage ones focused on developing new platforms and technologies. Barnes said that the acquisition was driven by the science behind ReNAgade’s lipid nanoparticles.
“Our combination had nothing to do with financial expediency. As soon as I saw the data, I wanted it,” Barnes said.
ReNAgade CEO Amit Munshi will lead the combined company, and Barnes will lead the startup’s scientific advisory board. Although Barnes and Munshi wouldn’t disclose the financial terms of the acquisition, they said that MPM wasn’t cashing out.
The deal highlights the increased importance that some genetic medicine startups are putting on drug delivery. Laronde and Senda Biosciences, two well-funded startups focused on circular RNA and novel nanoparticles, respectively, merged last year to form a new startup Sail Biomedicines.
“Deals happen for really two different reasons: inspiration and desperation. In this case, it was a truly inspired idea. Both companies could have stayed as standalone companies,” ReNAgade’s Munshi said. The startup is not looking to raise additional funding and has enough cash to last into 2027.
Both companies were working on using lipid nanoparticles to create CAR-T cells directly inside the body, rather than removing the cells, altering them in the lab, and reinfusing them. Orna has previously touted promising results in mice, and last year told Endpoints it was on track for the first clinical trials to begin in 2024.
Munshi said that the combined company will pivot to using ReNAgade’s lipid nanoparticles going forward, delaying its first clinical program until 2025.
The combined company will also advance two other programs from ReNAgade: in vivo cell therapies for autoimmune disease and in vivo treatments for hemoglobinopathies, such as sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. It will face intense competition from many other startups in both areas.
Orna once had ambitions to use its circular RNA technology to supply the missing muscle protein in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but Barnes said work on that program has been paused. “Delivery has proved challenging in that space,” he said.