Vancouver-based Borealis Biosciences has emerged from stealth with $150 million USD ($202 million CAD) in backing from San Francisco-based founding investor Versant Ventures and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.
Borealis will be working out of the former 23,000 square foot Chinook operating site in Vancouver.
First reported by The Globe and Mail, Borealis said in a statement that Versant and Novartis worked together to launch the independent company around key members of the Chinook Therapeutics research team. Chinook Therapeutics, a drug development company specializing in kidney diseases, was also launched by Versant in 2018 and featured backing from Canadian investment firms like Amplitude and Northleaf Capital Partners.
Chinook went on to list on the Nasdaq in 2022, before Novartis acquired it last year for $3.5 billion USD and made it a Novartis company. Fierce Biotech reported just a few months later that, under Novartis, one of Chinook’s kidney treatments showed significant positive effects in a study, allowing it to look towards United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) filing.
In the same vein as Chinook, Borealis was founded to work on RNA therapeutics that could address unmet needs for patients with kidney diseases. Borealis said this includes an improved understanding of patient stratification, genetically defined targets, requirements for delivery of therapeutic payloads to specific kidney cell types, and RNA chemistry advancements.
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“We’ve recognized over the last six years that some of the most validated targets for kidney disease have been out of reach with traditional modalities,” Versant managing director Jerel Davis said in a statement. “Borealis has the potential to address these targets and reach patients most in need.”
For its part, Novartis committed $100 million USD in upfront and near-term research funding. As part of the agreement, Novartis will have the option to acquire two future development-ready programs from Borealis for up to $750 million.
Borealis said that its initial 25-person team has worked at the forefront of kidney research and RNA therapeutics for more than a decade, and that it will be working out of the former 23,000 square foot Chinook operating site in Vancouver.
Feature image courtesy of National Cancer Institute via Unsplash.
