OrbiMed-backed Silverback, three months after hacking the pipeline, reverse-merges with small allergy biotech
Six years after being founded, a Seattle biotech backed by OrbiMed is saying goodbye in a classic reverse merger — while another jumps to Nasdaq.
Silverback Therapeutics put out word Thursday afternoon that the Seattle biotech is reverse-merging with ARS Pharmaceuticals, with the new company keeping the ARS name and trading under the ticker $SPRY.
Silverback had fallen on hard times earlier this year, axing its two lead I/O candidates to send it back to the preclinical drawing board and laying off 27% of its staff back in April. At the time, Silverback reported that it was dropping the candidates after a Phase I/Ib study showed that one of them, going after HER2, had a reduced ability to kill tumors and also showed too many cytokine-related side effects. The other candidate was using the same technology for a different target.
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