North Immunology has decided its path to taking its atopic dermatitis (AD) drug into the clinic involves going public via a reverse merger.
The private biotech, which was founded and incubated by ADAR1 Capital Management, will merge with Nasdaq-listed Aethlon Medical, the companies announced Thursday. Aethlon has been focused on developing its Hemopurifier device to filter a patient’s blood, but the merged company will be centered around North’s pipeline of bispecific antibodies that target orthogonal inflammatory pathways in immune and inflammatory diseases.
This pipeline is headed up by a half-life extended anti-IL-13 and anti-IL-18 bispecific antibody dubbed NOR-101. The plan is to take NOR-101 into the clinic in the first few months of next year, with interim data expected in the middle of the year and phase 2b data coming over in 2028, according to the Sept. 17 release.
AD is the most common form of eczema and is characterized by dry, scaly and intensely itchy skin prone to swinging between flare-ups and remissions. IL-13 drugs lead the market in the form of Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent and Eli Lilly’s Ebglyss, alongside JAK inhibitors like AbbVie's Rinvoq.
By aiming to inhibit both type 2 and non-type 2 inflammation, North has been billing its anti-IL-13 and anti-IL-18 bispecific as having potential to “deliver a best-in-disease treatment” for patients with AD.
“Monoclonal antibodies targeting type 2 inflammation have transformed the treatment of AD, yet the vast majority of patients still live with substantial disease burden,” North’s Chief Scientific Officer Mohit Gupta pointed out in the release.
North CEO Jonathan Barr said the biotech had been “encouraged by NOR-101's preclinical profile, including the promising bioavailability and approximately 42-day half-life observed in our non-human primate PK study.”
“We look forward to executing on our clinical development plan, with multiple data readouts expected through 2028,” Barr added in the release.
This clinical roadmap will be funded by $180 million from a private placement backed by Bain Capital Life Sciences, Janus Henderson Investors and Deep Track Capital.
The merged company will operate under the North Immunology name and be overseen by the biotech’s current leadership, while the Nasdaq ticker will be switched to “NRTX.” Aethlon’s shareholders are set to own 4.75% of the merged company with North’s shareholders—including participants in the private placement—owning the remainder.
The details of the deal mean that if the merged company is able to sell off Aethlon’s Hemopurifier business, sharing the profits with Aethlon's current shareholders.