Aprinoia Therapeutics and Ross Acquisition Corp II (RAC) have come to a mutual agreement to scrap their merger, the companies announced this week.
Aprinoia originally made the merger deal with RAC, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), back in January — becoming one of the first biotech companies to announce a biotech SPAC deal this year. That deal was worth up to $280 million.
However, the companies noted that as of Monday, they have entered a termination agreement effective immediately. The companies did not provide comment on the reason behind the terminated merger.
Aprinoia focuses primarily on developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). The biotech is in the process of developing three platforms that can diagnose and treat diseases that are linked to abnormal levels of tau and alpha-synuclein — proteins that can damage brain cells.
Two of those candidates include F-APN-1607, which is being explored as a diagnostic tool for PSP; and APNmAb005, a novel monoclonal antibody that targets pathologic forms of tau in Alzheimer’s. Aprinoia’s third drug in development is a protein degrader platform that seeks to target pathological α-Syn and tau proteins.
RAC is headed by Wilbur Ross, a businessman who formerly served as the Secretary of Commerce between 2017 and 2021 under former President Trump. Ross currently serves as president, CEO and chairman of the board at Ross Acquisition.
At the time of the merger announcement in January, Ross pointed to the high unmet need in the neurodegenerative space, with more than 6.5 million Alzheimer’s patients currently living in the U.S.
“Aprinoia’s tau approach is potentially complementary to beta-Amyloid based products like lecanemab,” Ross said in a statement at the time.
The original merger deal was meant to fund Aprionoia to move its lead candidates through development and commercialization in China. The termination agreement leaves that money up in the air and Aprionoia has not yet clarified how it plans to fund its products moving forward.
SPAC deals in the biotech space saw a significant boost in 2021, with a record 40 life science-related SPACs filing IPOs in just the first quarter of 2021. However, those deals have since dropped down due to macroeconomic headwinds throughout 2022.
