Biotech pain continues as Versant, MPM gene therapy startup calls it quits

A gene therapy startup backed by two key biopharmas and two premier biotech VC firms has ceased operations.

California biotech Coda Biotherapeutics shut down recently, investors Versant Ventures and MPM Capital confirmed to Endpoints News Tuesday night, declining to provide further details. The upstart had presented preclinical data on its program for focal epilepsy last summer but had not provided an update since then. MPM removed Coda from its portfolio page in recent weeks, per internet archives, and the biotech’s LinkedIn page has been wiped.

Coda also set out to create treatments for neuropathic pain and movement disorders by pairing a gene delivery platform with small molecule activator drugs. While Coda didn’t make it to the clinic on its own, it had bought three clinical-stage assets from Attenua in 2019, after that biotech’s investigational small molecule had flunked a Phase IIa in chronic refractory cough. Terms weren’t disclosed, but Attenua founder Jing Liang details, on his LinkedIn, having raised $35 million to fund the mid-stage study of bradanicline. 

Multiple gene therapy biotechs have trimmed operations and limited the scope of their pipelines in the past few quarters as part of a broader financing squeeze in biotech. Some have struggled to secure additional funds or have turned off the lights.

Mike Narachi

CEO Mike Narachi told STAT News at the time of the Attenua acquisition that Coda’s gene therapies wouldn’t do anything once injected into a patient’s brain until they take a pill containing the activator for the receptor on the gene therapy. He likened it to a key and lock mechanism.

Novartis, Astellas’ VC arm, Versant and MPM launched Coda in 2018 with $19 million and Narachi at the helm. He previously steered Orexigen Therapeutics and has been on the boards of Ultragenyx, BIO, PhRMA and others. Another $15 million was disclosed in 2019 from insiders and then $28 million in 2021 from pain management company Pacira Biosciences and Silicon Valley Bank.

Last March, Coda named Susan Catalano as CSO after she had co-founded Alzheimer’s biotech Cognition Therapeutics, which is currently in mid-stage testing and went public in 2021. Catalano was named CSO at another Versant gene therapy startup this week, where she’ll work on CNS and eye care programs at Capsida Biotherapeutics.

Coda was co-founded by professors at UCSF, Emory University and the University of Pittsburgh. Kenneth Greenberg, CEO of gene therapy biotech SonoThera, is a co-founder of Coda, as well.

Alex Hoffman contributed reporting.

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