Sumitovant subsidiaries Enzyvant and Altavant merge into combined company

Two Sumitovant Biopharma entities are merging under one name, effective immediately.

Bill Symonds

Enzyvant Therapeutics and Altavant Sciences announced they have merged to form a singular entity focused on developing therapies for patients with rare diseases. The combined company will keep the name Enzyvant and along with clinical development will eventually include in-house manufacturing.

Bill Symonds, the current CEO of both Altavant and Enzyvant, is now CEO of the merged company.

As to why the companies are merging, Symonds explained in an email to Endpoints News:

Merging Enzyvant and Altavant brings the two companies’ complementary capabilities in commercialization and development, respectively, into one biopharmaceutical company in ultra-rare and rare diseases. With a full range of capabilities in nonclinical and clinical development, commercialization, and in-house manufacturing, the combined company can achieve more for the rare disease community than each company could separately.

Enzyvant, which netted FDA approval for its regenerative tissue-based therapy Rethymic last year, will continue to investigate another product dubbed rodatristat ethyl, which is designed to address a root cause of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Enzyvant scored FDA approval for Rethymic last year after being in development for 25 years, and after a 2019 rejection over a manufacturing issue.

The deal also includes a manufacturing component, with the new company headquartered in the Raleigh suburb of Cary, NC. The company is in the middle of developing a 26,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the nearby town of Morrisville, NC.

According to Symonds, the site, which started development earlier this year, will provide the merged company with the size and flexibility to serve its commercial and clinical needs.

“When it is completed in the second half of 2024, the facility will have three processing suites where Enzyvant will manufacture Rethymic … and other regenerative medicines that our company will be investigating. The new manufacturing facility is being co-developed by and operated with Sumitovant Pharma,” Symonds said in an email to Endpoints.

Symonds said that the company plans to hire around 40 laboratory scientists over the next two years to manufacture medicines at the facility, which is being co-developed and operated with Sumitovant Pharma.

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