Ar­a­vive merges with strug­gling Ver­sar­tis, gain­ing ac­cess to Nas­daq; Si­lence Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Ali Mor­taza­vi leaves the RNAi biotech

→ Right on the heels of its first clin­i­cal proof-of-mech­a­nism da­ta, Ar­a­vive Bi­o­log­ics an­nounced it will con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment of GAS6-AXL in­hibitor AVB-S6-500 as a pub­lic com­pa­ny formed through merg­ing with a Ver­sar­tis $VSAR sub­sidiary. Jay Shep­ard, CEO of Men­lo Park, CA-based Ver­sar­tis, will take the helm of the new com­pa­ny, which will have its head­quar­ters in Ar­a­vive’s home of Hous­ton. The deal fills a gap­ing hole in Ver­sar­tis’ pipeline, which has been bar­ren since its growth hor­mone flopped in a Phase III last Sep­tem­ber, and piv­ots its fo­cus from en­docrinol­o­gy to on­col­o­gy. Ar­a­vive, on the oth­er hand, is in for the “fi­nan­cial re­sources and ex­pe­ri­enced lead­er­ship.” “Ver­sar­tis’ de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial plan­ning ex­per­tise, as well as its op­er­a­tional pro­fi­cien­cy, will com­ple­ment the strong sci­en­tif­ic and clin­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the Ar­a­vive team,” said Ar­a­vive ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Ray Tabib­i­azar, who is one of sev­en board di­rec­tors of the new biotech.

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