Fol­low­ing deep cuts, Yu­man­i­ty strikes a deal to sell drugs to J&J, hands the keys to Genen­tech-part­nered Kine­ta

Yu­man­i­ty has found that “strate­gic al­ter­na­tive” it start­ed search­ing for ear­ly this year as its share price shriv­eled, forc­ing deep staff cuts.

The suf­fer­ing biotech has agreed to sell off most of its pipeline — in­clud­ing a par­tial­ly-held Phase I Parkin­son’s drug, dubbed YTX-7739, and un­part­nered dis­cov­ery-stage neu­ro­science prod­uct can­di­dates — to J&J for $26 mil­lion in cash. And it’s ex­e­cut­ing a re­verse merg­er with the pri­vate biotech Kine­ta, which will wind up with the pub­lic list­ing and Yu­man­i­ty’s Mer­ck-part­nered ALS/fron­totem­po­ral lo­bar de­gen­er­a­tion pro­gram.

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