GRO Biosciences Faces Uncertainty Amid Strategic Review and Potential IP Conflict

In a surprising turn of events, GRO Biosciences (GRObio), a synthetic biology startup spun out of George Church's Harvard lab, has announced it is exploring strategic alternatives just six months after securing a $60.3 million Series B funding round. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, known for its innovative genomically recoded organism (GRO) platform, has also undergone a recent reorganization that included reducing its research staff.

Sudden Downturn Following Significant Funding

GRObio's decision to explore strategic options comes on the heels of substantial financial backing from top-tier venture capital firms. In July 2024, the company closed an oversubscribed Series B round co-led by Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology, bringing its total funding to over $90 million. Previous investors, including Leaps by Bayer, Redmile Group, Digitalis Ventures, and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, also participated in the round.

The abrupt shift in the company's trajectory has raised questions about investor support and the viability of its core technology. GRObio has declined to comment on whether investors have withdrawn their support, and Atlas Venture has not responded to requests for comment.

Leadership Changes and Restructuring

As part of the reorganization, several key figures have departed from GRObio. LinkedIn searches reveal that multiple staff members, including co-founder and principal scientist Benjamin Stranges, Ph.D., left the company in January. Additionally, founding CEO Daniel Mandell, Ph.D., and chief scientific officer Christopher Gregg, Ph.D., have been removed from the startup's leadership page.

Potential IP Conflict with Pearl Bio

Adding to GRObio's challenges is a potential intellectual property conflict with Pearl Bio, another Church Lab spinout focused on synthetic biology. Pearl Bio claims to hold a "blocking IP" in the form of a U.S. patent (11,649,446) issued in June 2023. This patent, according to Pearl Bio's leadership, protects the use of any GROs for making proteins encoded with synthetic chemistries, including non-standard amino acids (NSAAs).

Pearl Bio's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Business Officer, Amy Cayne Schwartz, stated that GRObio would need to license this IP from Pearl if it wishes to advance products based on proteins with synthetic amino acids using a GRO. To date, GRObio has not approached Pearl for such a licensing agreement.

GRObio has refuted claims that investors are withdrawing due to this potential IP conflict, stating, "The board and the Company stand firmly by the broad intellectual property portfolio GRObio has developed related to both its lead asset and its genomically recoded organism (GRO) platform."

Despite these challenges, GRObio maintains that it is evaluating multiple options for the development and advancement of its platform and intellectual property. The company's lead drug candidate, ProGly-Uricase for gout treatment, remains a focus as GRObio explores strategic alternatives to advance this program.

As the situation unfolds, the pharmaceutical industry watches closely to see how GRObio will navigate these complex issues and what implications this may have for the broader field of synthetic biology and genomically recoded organisms.