It’s been an inauspicious start to the first quarter as many biotechs are forced to cut back on staff or pipelines. Inspirna appears to be the latest victim of this trend, although the oncology company is going one step further by closing completely.
Releasing a statement on LinkedIn Monday, March 31, Inspirna’s CEO Usman “Oz” Azam, M.D., said he was “sad to inform you that after 10 years as a fantastic biotech company in NYC, Inspirna is winding down.”
Azam, who became CEO two years ago and is a Novartis alum, gave no further details about why the biotech is shuttering nor the exact number of staffers affected by the private company’s decision. “Recruiters can contact me directly for a talent book—all high-performing professionals that will be an asset to any organization in the life sciences,” he added on the post.
The biotech, which has raised more than $140 million over several investment rounds in the last few years from the likes of Novo Holdings and Sofinnova Partners, originated as RGENIX before changing its name in 2021. The company's last round, a series D, came back in 2022 and brought in $50 million.
Inspirna was founded from science out of Rockefeller University that targets key pathways in cancer progression via a microRNA-based target discovery platform known as RNA-DRIVEr.
The biotech had drugs in early to midstage testing in the forms of CKB/SLC6A8 pathway-targeted RGX-202, also known as ompenaclid, in gastrointestinal (GI) cancers and RGX-104, an LXR agonist focused on solid tumors.
Just last year, Merck KGaA penned an upfront $45 million deal with Inspirna that gave the German pharma ex-U.S. licensing rights to RGX-202, which is specifically aimed at patients with RAS-mutated, advanced forms of GI cancer.
At the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology annual meeting, the drug produced a 37% objective response rate in 30 evaluable colorectal patients, while the median progression-free survival was 10.2 months in a slightly larger sample size of 41 patients.
Azam referenced the RGX-202 deal in his post yesterday, offering his “thanks to the Merck Group for partnering with us on our lead program ompenaclid in colorectal cancer.” However, the CEO did not go into details about what will now happen to the drug, nor the Merck deal, amid Inspirna’s closure.