Boehringer Ingelheim will work with a Boston startup to develop oral medicines for chronic kidney diseases in a partnership worth up to $448 million in biobucks.
The move boosts the profile of the nimble Rectify Pharma, which has not needed to raise money since its
$100 million launch
in September 2021, CEO Rajesh Devraj said in an interview. The biotech, founded by three-decade Vertex veteran Jonathan Moore, is backed by Atlas Venture, Omega Funds, Forbion and Longwood Fund.
Upfront terms for the Monday morning collaboration were kept under wraps. The tie-up represents Rectify’s first pharma partnership, and talks between the duo have been going on for about two years, Devraj said.
The partnership revolves around the ABCC6 protein.
That protein is critical to regulating calcification. Lower amounts of the protein are found in patients with CKD and rare genetic conditions such as pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) and generalized arterial calcification of infancy (GACI), Rectify said.
Rectify could help broaden Boehringer’s established presence in the chronic kidney disease field, which includes Jardiance, its approved medicine in collaboration with Eli Lilly. Boehringer also has an experimental
aldosterone synthase inhibitor
in combination with Jardiance in
Phase 3
testing. The drugmaker has made
cardio-renal-metabolic
a core focus, with
obesity as a key part
of that R&D apparatus.
Rectify adds to a flurry of biotech partnerships inked by Boehringer since the beginning of August. The family-owned German drug giant has made alliances with
CDR-Life
,
Kyowa Kirin
,
AimedBio
,
Quantro Therapeutics
and
Palatin Technologies
. Meanwhile, it has
dropped
some programs, including a schizophrenia drug from Nxera Pharma.
Rectify is developing a pill that targets the ABC transporters ABCB4 and BSEP. The ABCB4 protein “addresses bile homeostasis,” and BSEP is the “most important transporter that excretes bile acids away from the liver,” Devraj said.
The near-term goal is to send the asset into Phase 1 in healthy volunteers “very early next year” and then into Phase 1b for primary sclerosing cholangitis, or PSC, Devraj said.
The chronic liver disease leads to inflamed bile ducts. Since there are no FDA-approved medicines for the condition, “the chances are high” for an accelerated approval route for Rectify’s unnamed drug prospect, Devraj said. But he said it’s yet to be determined what the exact path the medicine will take.
There’s precedent in an adjacent condition called PBC, or primary biliary cholangitis. In 2024, Ipsen’s
Iqirvo
and Gilead’s
Livdelzi
both gained FDA accelerated approval for PBC, and other drugmakers are
looking
to get onto the market, as well. Intercept, meanwhile, is
pulling
its PBC drug from the market.
PBC could be one of the indications Rectify explores for its drug candidate after getting into PSC. The medicine could be a “pipeline-in-a-pill” product, the CEO said. MASH could be another area Rectify explores, according to its website.
Rectify is also expanding the “remit” of its platform to “other membrane proteins” beyond ABC transporters, Devraj said.
“We found this very unique hot spot in these membrane proteins that we can plug and play, rinse and repeat,” the CEO said. “You build a platform. The question is, can you deploy it at scale? Can you then transfer it from one set of targets to the other? And, three, can you do it repeatedly and consistently?”
With the Boehringer pact and remaining Series A funds, Rectify can answer some of those questions. The company has enough runway to get to clinical proof-of-mechanism with the PSC drug, Devraj said.
