BAKX Therapeutics to shut down after ‘scientific challenges’ and financing doldrums

BAKX Therapeutics will shut down by Aug. 1, ending a “Thelma and Louise” approach to cancer small molecules after scientific, financing and timeline challenges upended the biotech, CEO Sree Kant posted on LinkedIn Tuesday.

Sree Kant

The New York and Boston biotech emerged in 2020 and quickly drew the interest of Ipsen in a small upfront, but large back-end, deal worth more than $800 million. The goal was to go after blood cancers and solid tumors.

The three-year-old startup laid off most scientists on July 1 and will let go the remainder of employees by Aug. 1, Kant wrote in his post. The company’s board decided to terminate all operations, he wrote.

In a message to Endpoints News, Kant said his “key priorities” right now are ensuring the academic founders “have all that we have done so that they can continue the science, and that we are able to connect our employees to opportunities in the market.”

“Ipsen and Bakx have jointly decided to terminate their pre-clinical collaboration,” an Ipsen spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Endpoints. “This recent decision is the result of the program not achieving some pre-defined development milestones.”

Fierce Biotech first reported the news. BAKX joins a growing list of companies citing the financing environment as a reason for shuttering, following Singapore cell therapy biotech Tessa Therapeutics last week.

BAKX is based on work out of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Loren Walensky and Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Evripidis Gavathiotis. It snagged a $25 million Series A in 2021 from AB Magnitude Ventures Group, Ipsen and Sherpa Healthcare Partners.

“When we started BAKX in early 2020, we had a vision of transforming cancer treatment by being the first company to successfully target the pro-apoptotic side of the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway,” Kant wrote in his LinkedIn post. “We understood the significant challenge ahead of us (as evidenced by the amount of time it has taken companies to make drugs in this pathway) and were driven by the transformative possibilities that we saw.”

During apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, the body rids itself of abnormal or unwanted cells. Some cancer cells are too smart and are able to avoid death. In stepped BAKX, which looked to target pro-apoptotic proteins like BAK and BAX.

Speaking with Endpoints at the time of the 2021 Series A, Kant analogized the approach to Thelma and Louise when standing at the edge of the cliff in the 90s film. Can cells be driven off the cliff either by easing on the brakes or putting the pedal to the metal. BAKX was looking to follow the latter approach.

“Today, while we haven’t quite achieved the goals we set for ourselves, we have very tangibly advanced the science in this space – and hopefully created a platform for others to build on,” Kant wrote.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with a statement from an Ipsen spokesperson.

therapeutics
cell therapy
small molecules
biotech
healthcare