US antisense specialist Genta has agreed to acquire Salus Therapeutics, a specialist in small interfering RNA, for up to $30 million (€27m) in cash and stock. The terms of the agreement call for Genta to issue $13 million in stock at closing.
Investors in privately held Salus can receive an additional $17 million, paid either in cash or stock, if certain preclinical and clinical milestones are achieved. The transaction is expected to close by the end of September. In a related announcement, Genta also purchased a non-exclusive licence to several siRNA patents from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The focus of Salus' R&D programme has been on the development of a proprietary screening system, OptiSense, that rapidly identifies key target areas in messenger RNA that can be targeted using both antisense and RNAi, as well as methods of using single-stranded siRNA and micro-RNA molecules to knockdown gene expression in target cells.
Salus has also developed a polymer-based delivery platform called PolyBus that has been shown to improve the pharmaceutical properties of oligonucleotides.