Pulmatrix may have been discarded by Cullgen, but the inhaled therapy biotech’s Nasdaq listing has caught the attention of another company.
Massachusetts-based Pulmatrix will now merge with Eos SENOLYTIX, a privately-listed biotech whose lead mitochondrial-targeted candidate, dubbed PTC-2105, is being evaluated to counter age-related loss of muscle mass and strength. The merged company will be focused on PTC-2105, operate under the Eos SENOLYTIX banner and switch its Nasdaq ticker to “EOSX.”
Pulmatrix’s current stockholders will own around 6% of the merged company, with the remaining 94% owned by Eos SENOLYTIX’s investors. The deal has already been signed off by the boards of directors at both companies and is expected to close in mid-2026.
Houston, Texas-based Eos SENOLYTIX describes itself as being focused on the biological mechanisms of aging. While anti-aging startups have had no problem securing big name backers, Eos SENOLYTIX’s idea is to combine this focus with another red-hot area of biopharma R&D—obesity.
The company’s MitoXcel geropeptides are designed to both enhance the mitochondrial efficiency in aging cells as well as eliminate senescent cells—damaged cells that stop dividing but do not die. In this way, Eos SENOLYTIX’s pitch is that PTC-2105 can ultimately lead to “reductions in fat mass greater than seen with GLP-1s, increases in lean mass, and improvements in physical function without reduced food intake or rebound weight gain.”
“PTC-2105 brings a unique, proprietary alternative to GLP-1s that may provide significant improvements in healthspan when administered either as monotherapy or in combination with GLP-1s,” the company claimed in this morning’s release.
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Aligned with the merger agreement, the companies have secured $19 million in private financing to develop PTC-2105 for sarcopenia—age-related loss of muscle mass, strength, and function—and age-related disease.
“This proposed merger represents an important step forward in advancing our mission to develop therapies that target the root causes of aging-related disease, positioning our MitoXcel gerotherapeutic platform to advance PTC-2105 and our broader pipeline toward clinical development,” Eos SENOLYTIX CEO Kevin Slawin, M.D., said.
Slawin is also the founder of Perseus SENOLYTIX, a sister company that applies the same MitoXcel platform to treating cancer.
The reverse merger with Eos SENOLYTIX marks a very different outcome for Pulmatrix to the one envisaged even a few weeks ago. It was only at the start of this month that Cullgen—which had announced plans in November 2024 to merge with Pulmatrix—revealed that it would instead be bought by Gyre Therapeutics in a $300 million all-stock acquisition.
