Jose Car­los Gutier­rez-Ramos

Jose Car­los Gutier­rez-Ramos has found the back door to Nas­daq.

The CEO at Cam­bridge, MA-based Syn­log­ic is ex­e­cut­ing a re­verse merg­er with the failed Austin-based biotech Mir­na Ther­a­peu­tics, which will put the syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy com­pa­ny in­to the pub­lic mar­ket. And in ad­di­tion, the  biotech says that it re­cent­ly closed a $42 mil­lion C round to back its tran­si­tion in­to the spot­light of pub­lic re­port­ing.

Re­verse merg­ers are cer­tain­ly not un­usu­al. We’ve seen a string of com­pa­nies opt to hop on­to the burnt out shell of a failed biotech to re­verse their way on­to Wall Street — par­tic­u­lar­ly since the IPO boom died down. Re­cent­ly, though, IPOs have been pick­ing up, leav­ing many of the re­verse plays to ex­ecs who ei­ther didn’t want to do dozens of road shows for in­vestors or who felt that they wouldn’t get a par­tic­u­lar­ly warm re­cep­tion if they did.

Gutier­rez-Ramos left a promi­nent po­si­tion in Pfiz­er’s R&D or­ga­ni­za­tion to join the mi­gra­tion out of Big Phar­ma and in­to biotech cir­cles. But it’s still ear­ly days at the com­pa­ny, which spe­cial­izes in reengi­neer­ing bac­te­ria in­to ther­a­peu­tics. Syn­log­ic is plan­ning to start its first Phase I safe­ty study for a lead drug — SYNB1020 — for urea cy­cle dis­or­ders and he­pat­ic en­cephalopa­thy in the next few months. A sec­ond pro­gram is be­ing read­ied for the clin­ic with plans to tar­get phenylke­tonuria (PKU), which is caused by de­fec­tive me­tab­o­lism of the amino acid pheny­lala­nine.

The C round gives Syn­log­ic $82 mil­lion in cash on hand. The mon­ey was put up by Aju IB In­vest­ment, Al­ly Bridge Group, Arc­tic Au­ro­ra Life­Science, CLI Ven­tures, Per­cep­tive Ad­vi­sors, Rock Springs Cap­i­tal, and “oth­er undis­closed new in­vestors.” At­las Ven­ture, Deer­field, New En­ter­prise As­so­ci­ates, and Or­biMed, which helped back the com­pa­ny af­ter Gutier­rez-Ramos made the leap two years ago, al­so took part in the lat­est round.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.