A newly formed spinout of recently acquired Avidity Biosciences debuted Friday with plans to pick up some of its predecessor’s work.
Called Atrium Therapeutics, the startup is emerging four months after the $12 billion buyout of Avidity at the hands of Novartis. It’s led by Avidity’s former Chief Program Officer Kathleen Gallagher, chaired by its ex-CEO Sarah Boyce and will develop RNA medicines for rare heart conditions — research that wasn’t involved in the Novartis deal.
Avidity was one of many companies working on ways to broaden the reach of RNA drugs, which have historically been limited to targets in the liver. Its technology was designed to send RNA medicines into hard-to-reach muscle tissue, and yielded a trio of medicines in late-stage development for three different neuromuscular conditions.
The company went public at $18 per share in 2020 and was sold to Novartis last October at four times that per-share price. At the time, Novartis claimed Avidity’s neuromuscular disease work would “unlock multibillion-dollar opportunities” and help create an “industry-leading pipeline.”
“The Avidity team has built robust programs with industry-leading delivery of RNA therapeutics to muscle tissue,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in an October statement.
Avidity, though, had also been working on medicines that could send RNA drugs into heart muscles, another area these medicines have long struggled to reach. That work once drew the interest of Bristol Myers Squibb and, in October, Avidity disclosed it’d form the foundation of a new company.
On Friday, that company was revealed to be Atrium, which is starting out with programs for two rare, life-threatening heart conditions: PRKAG2 syndrome and PLN cardiomyopathy. Both are in preclinical testing. The company also has two other undisclosed research targets and about $270 million in cash to work with.
"Patients and families facing these genetically driven rare cardiomyopathies have few if any options that address the underlying cause. Building on Avidity's pioneering work in targeted RNA delivery, Atrium is positioned to advance precision medicines designed to directly target the biologic drivers of cardiac disease,” Gallagher, its CEO, said in a statement.
