Revere Pharmaceuticals Announces Asset Purchase Agreement to Acquire All Assets of Geneyus LLC
Revere becomes the leader in developing drugs targeting Rho GTPases with consolidation of key assets pertaining to Rac1, including a drug discovery platform and promising preclinical programs
Boston, Mass. — Revere Pharmaceuticals, an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule drugs targeting the Ras-homologous (Rho) family GTPases, announced the completion of an Asset Purchase Agreement to acquire all the assets of Geneyus LLC, a company focused on the Rho GTPase Rac1. Key assets include the Rho GTPase drug discovery platform built by Geneyus, several preclinical programs including GYS32661, and other novel Rac1 inhibitors. In addition, two key individuals from Geneyus will join Revere, Marc Lippman, MD as Board Director and Erik Goka, PhD as Senior Director of Biology.
“With our shared belief in targeting Rho GTPases for treating cancer and other diseases, we are very pleased to join forces with Geneyus” said Bob Silverman, President and CEO of Revere. “We are especially happy to welcome Drs. Marc Lippman and Erik Goka to the Revere team, and together we have a unique opportunity to develop first-in-class drugs for unmet patient needs.”
Together with Revere’s expert medicinal chemistry and in silico models, the Rho GTPase drug discovery platform will allow the company to systematically identify inhibitors of Rac1 and its genomic variants and CDC42. Key to the platform is the cascade of biochemical and cell based assays to rapidly assess compound activity and selectivity against specific GTPase targets.
In the non-cash transaction, Geneyus shareholders received equity in Revere. Other terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Rho GTPases
Rho GTPases are a diverse group of signaling proteins, including Rac1 and CDC42 characterized by their ability to bind to the guanosine triphosphate (GTP) nucleotide and hydrolyze it to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). Activity of these proteins switch between the inactive GDP-bound form and the active GTP-bound form which recruits other downstream effector proteins to promote many critical cancer processes, including cell growth, migration, invasion, and angiogenesis. Dysregulation of Rac1 or Cdc42 is implicated in multiple cancer types including lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, and gastric cancer and is commonly associated with resistance to chemotherapy and other targeted cancer therapeutics. Rho GTPase dysregulation has also been implicated in chronic kidney disease and viral infections such as SARS CoV2.
About Revere Pharmaceuticals
Revere Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule drugs targeting the Ras-homologous (Rho) family GTPases, molecular switches that are central to cancer progression and other disease processes. Based on a deep understanding of how to balance the active and inactive forms of the GTPase, the company has built a pipeline of novel small molecules that target Rac1, select Rac1 variants and CDC42. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.reverepharma.com.