Mira Pharmaceuticals is making moves in weight loss and smoking cessation. The biotech is trying to buy Skny Pharmaceuticals in a deal that would give it control of a preclinical prospect and add $5 million to its bank balance.
Miami-based Mira has signed a binding letter of intent to buy Skny, positioning the two parties to spend the coming days ironing out the details. Mira plans to acquire the biotech through a stock exchange, but the details will depend on an independent valuation of the two companies. If the deal goes ahead, Skny will contribute $5 million to the combined company but none of its leaders or employees will join Mira.
The acquisition will add SKNY-1 to Mira’s pipeline. Mira said the oral candidate is “designed to interact with cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 pathways.” Interest in treating smoking and obesity by targeting CB1 dates back more than 20 years, with Sanofi’s rimonabant leading the charge in the early days.
Sanofi won approval for rimonabant in Europe in 2006, but authorities withdrew the authorization three years later over studies linking the drug to a doubling of the risk of psychiatric disorders. The weight-loss boom has reignited interest in the mechanism. Novo Nordisk inked a $1.1 billion deal to buy Inversago Pharma in 2023, only for neuropsychiatric side effects from a CB1 receptor blocker to raise the specter of Sanofi’s withdrawal.
Mira talked up the preclinical data on SKNY-1 without publishing the evidence. There is little information about Skny or its lead program online. Skny holds exclusive rights to its compounds in the U.S. and the licensor has agreed to extend the agreement to include Canada and Mexico.
The $5 million included in the deal could be significant for Mira. The biotech ended September with $4.1 million in cash and, having burnt through $3.8 million in the previous nine months, warned investors of a substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.
Mira’s pipeline already features MIRA-55 and Ketamir-2. The biotech secured an exclusive license to Ketamir-2 in 2023 as part of a deal that gave it a $3 million line of credit to fund the development of the oral ketamine analog. Mira received clearance to test Ketamir-2 in humans early this month. As of October, the biotech was aiming to get MIRA-55 to that stage in the fourth quarter of 2025.