When it comes to Cyclerion Therapeutics' colorful backstory, the only consistency has been its inconsistency.
Once upon a time, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company positioned itself as a biotech focused on heart failure and sickle cell disease, before switching focus to the central nervous system and then to mitochondria-related diseases.
Now, all of that has been forgotten, as Cyclerion announced its “transformational relaunch as a neuropsychiatric company.” The cornerstone of the biotech’s rebuild is tech licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed to “leverages common anesthetic agents and a ... system to resynchronize communication between key brain regions and restore functional connectivity.”
Cyclerion’s lead program will target this tech at treatment-resistant depression. The company also alluded to plans to expand into other neuropsychiatric conditions with “large unmet needs.”
“This agreement marks the launch of a new era at Cyclerion,” said the biotech’s CEO Regina Graul, Ph.D. “We are building a company that combines the rigor of a leading biopharma with the agility of a startup.”
“For patients who have exhausted traditional options and for those underserved by current treatments, our foundational therapeutic candidate could represent the future of care in treatment-resistant depression,” Graul added. “We believe Cyclerion will lead the way in advancing precision neuropsychiatric solutions beyond TRD—potentially bringing forward additional therapies that are safe, effective and accessible.”
The company’s new operating model is designed to “maximize value creation and advance programs through de-risked inflection points,” including a phase 2 trial for the lead program penciled in for a 2026 kickoff.
Cyclerion’s enthusiasm for getting its neuropsychiatric plans up and running isn’t surprising when you consider how many times the company has previously changed its focus. The Ironwood Pharma spinout began life developing soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) stimulators for a range of rare and life-threatening disorders.
Flops in heart failure, diabetic kidney disease and sickle cell disease led to layoffs and a shift to the central nervous system in 2020. But, two years later, the biotech decided that its real passion lay with using sCG stimulators on mitochondria-related diseases.
More recently, the company has been licensing off its sGC portfolio. It means that yesterday’s relaunch is arguably the biotech’s boldest reinvention yet, as it throws its weight behind a different modality altogether.