Enliven Takes Precision Oncology Ambitions Public In Merger With Imara

From the ruins of Imara Inc.’s dashed hopes in hemoglobinopathy indications, Enliven Therapeutics will reach the public market in a reverse merger that it says will get it to clinical data readouts for two lead precision oncology candidates and provide financial runway into 2026.

The two companies announced their planned merger on 13 October, an all-stock transaction expected to close in Q1 2023 that will give Enliven shareholders an estimated 84% interest in the new entity, which will assume Imara’s Nasdaq listing. Imara grossed $75.2m in a March 2020 initial public offering, but the Cambridge, MA-based firm was built mainly around a single asset, tovinontrine (IMR-687), which yielded disappointing results in Phase IIb for sickle cell disease (SCD) and beta-thalassemia