Another Watertown Biotech Goes Public via Reverse Merger, and a Flurry of Leasing at the Arsenal
Plus Biolabs expansion and Labshare's new tenants
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There’s been a flurry of companies moving to Watertown this week. Before reading on consider sharing this newsletter with a friend and subscribe to support our work.
Remix Therapeutics is going public via reverse merger with Passage Bio
Remix Therapeutics headquartered at Arsenal Yards, announced that they will go public through a reverse merger with Passage Bio. The company will operate under the name Remix Therapeutics and trade under the symbol RMTX on the Nasdaq. In an email to Watertown Bio, a Remix spokesperson confirmed that they intend to continue operating the merged company out of their Watertown headquarters. In addition to the merger, the company also announced a private placement of $100 million from a syndicate of investors led by Decheng Capital.
Remix’s core technology is their REMaster platform, which is used to design small molecules that remove a target mRNA by modulating intron splicing to trigger the non-sense mediated decay pathway. Remix recently released positive clinical trial results for lead candidate REM-422, an mRNA degrader in development for the treatment of Adenoid Cystic Carcenoma.
While Remix has seen early success, Passage Bio has faced some recent challenges. In April, the neuroscience company received news from the FDA that their lead candidate PBFT02 for FT-GRN would require a randomized controlled trial for future testing of the compound, something the company stated would pose ethics concerns for patients, and was not something they could logistically or feasibility achieve. At this point, the company laid off 75% of their staff and began to look for strategic partners to chart a path forward for the company, leading to the merger with Remix.
Taking a step back to look at the broader Watertown landscape, the language Passage Bio used to describe their future is nearly identical to that of Werewolf Bio. With reverse mergers heating up, it possible that Werewolf is positioning themselves to be the vehicle for another biotech to go public, especially after they used the sale of some assets to clear away short term loan debts.
More Remix merger coverage: read the BBJ’s coverage here
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Three Biotechs lease office space at the Arsenal On the Charles
While new lab buildings were the centerpiece of Alexandria Real Estate Equities redevelopment of the Arsenal on the Charles back in 2021, the single largest building on the campus is the former Army Materials Technology Laboratory building at 311 Arsenal Street. The 359,000 office building has been mainly empty after anchor tenant and former AOTC owners Athena Health moved to Boston Landing. Recent building permit data however show several biotech companies are planning to move to the building.
Alexandria has filed building permits to build out office suites for Olema Oncology (permit), Ethyreal Bio (permit), and X4 Pharma (permit). While we will detail each company more when they move in, Ethyreal Bio made headlines last month when it launched from stealth mode with $101 million in funding led by Atlas Venture and Medicxi Ventures with the goal of developing an antibody based therapeutic for thyroid eye disease and Grave’s disease. Similar to AOTC neighbor Kestrel Therapeutics and Disc Medicines, these companies will not be operating research labs onsite, since 311 Arsenal is an office only building. In total, these companies will be leasing approximately 24,000 sqft of space.
Labshares announces its latest tenants and Biolabs files permits to double in size.
One way biotech companies have adapted to the leaner economic conditions over the last few years has been by choosing shared lab spaces rather than stand alone suites. The surge in company’s looking for lab space led to lab operator LabShares opening up a second location at 66 Galen Street. Their first space recently opened up, and they announced they are already at 60% capacity (see some of their new tenants in the arrivals section below). Similarly, the Biolabs incubator branch at 134 Coolidge Ave filed permits to double their lab space to around 36,000 sqft. These moves, combined with the office leasing at the Arsenal on the Charles, highlight Watertown’s ability to continue to attract a diverse range of biotech companies to the community.
Quick Hits
Arrivals
Novilla Pharmaceuticals moved into Labshares. The company is using AI to design new pain medicines that are targeted to specific regions of the body. Their lead candidate NOV-1776 is in development to treat pain associated with gout.
Oryon Cell Therapies moved into Labshares. The company is developing neurons from patient derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to replace dopaminergic neurons lost during Parkinson’s disease.
K2B Therapeutics also moved into Labshares. The company is using siRPAa conjugates to specifically target cancer cells with therapies using the same signals the cancer cells normally use to avoid detection by the immune system.
Pre-Clinical and Clinical Trial News
Kymera Therapeutics (Arsenal on the Charles) announced the full enrollment of their BROADEN Phase 2b trial of KT-621 for atopic dermatitis, 6 months ahead of schedule.
Abkyu announced a strategic discovery agreement with Synap Bio.
People
Nocion Therapeutics President & CEO Rick Batycky gave an interview to Big4Bio.
Entact Bio appointed John G. Houston, Ph.D to their board of directors.
That’s all for this week!
