Arca Biopharma, Oruka Therapeutics merger complete

BOULDER — Arca Biopharma Inc. (Nasdaq: ABIO) has completed its merger with Oruka Therapeutics Inc., and the combined company’s stock will begin trading next week on the Nasdaq exchange under the “ORKA” ticker symbol. 

In conjunction with the merger, the combined company will effect a reverse-stock split under which “every 12 shares of the combined company’s common stock outstanding will be combined and reclassified into 1 share of the combined company’s common stock,” the parties said in a news release.

Massachusetts-based Oruka revealed to regulators in April its plan to absorb Arca in a reverse-merger deal in which the struggling Westminster-based cardiovascular therapies developer will serve as a vessel for taking Oruka public. 

Moving forward, the company will focus its efforts on Oruka’s existing pipeline of drug candidates for the treatment of chronic skin diseases such as plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

Oruka, which is the third pharmaceutical company to be spun out of Paragon Therapeutics Inc., following Spyre Therapeutics and Apogee Therapeutics, said that it has secured commitments for a $275 million private investment to support the merger, as well as pledges from a long line of investors to buy the now-publicly traded Oruka shares.

Arca, which spent the past two years searching for an M&A partner, told regulators in late April that if Oruka were to have failed, Arca may have been forced to pursue “a dissolution and liquidation.”

After nearly doubling its year-over-year losses in 2021, Arca Biopharma’s board of directors established a special committee and hired a consultant tasked with weighing the company’s strategic options for righting the ship.

The company then retained Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc. in May 2022 to “evaluate strategic options, including transactions involving a merger, sale of all or part of the company’s assets, or other alternatives with the goal of maximizing stockholder value,” Arca said at the time.