For the biotech formerly known as Eliem Therapeutics, it’s all about the climb—Climb Bio, that is.
Massachusetts-based Eliem unveiled a new corporate identity this week, announcing Wednesday that it will henceforth be known as Climb Bio. Three years after debuting on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ELYM,” as of Thursday, it’ll trade instead as “CLYM.”
In tandem with the rebrand, the company has also given its logo and website a makeover. The Eliem website now redirects to Climb’s URL, which is decked out in shades of bright yellow and dark blue and topped with the slogan, “Together, we can reach higher ground.” The new logo evokes a sun rising over a mountain; Eliem’s emblem, meanwhile, put the focus on the human brain, alongside the company’s then-pursuit of “optimizing treatments for neurological disorders.”
According to CEO Aoife Brennan, M.D., the new branding lines up with the company’s recently retooled focus on “developing treatments for patients with immune-mediated diseases.”
“Our new name pays homage to the journey patients with autoimmune diseases must travel and to the work required to develop new treatments with them in mind,” Brennan said in the announcement.
“Our lead product candidate, budoprutug, is an anti-CD19 monoclonal antibody that presents us with an exciting opportunity given its broad potential applicability across a number of B-cell mediated diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, immune thrombocytopenia, and membranous nephropathy,” she continued. “We’re dedicated to building a leading biotechnology company around budoprutug and advancing important medicines for patients.”
Climb picked up budoprutug in its acquisition of Tenet Medicines earlier this year. That acquisition came after the biotech, in its Eliem days, steadily wound down its neuro-focused pipeline and ended up in mid-2023 with a clean slate and a plan to pursue “strategic alternatives.”
Eliem emerged from stealth in 2021 with a promising outlook: It had $80 million in its pocket and clinical-phase pain and depression candidates in progress, and even more funds flooded in throughout that year.
In August 2022, however, the company dropped its lead pain program after it failed a phase 2a trial, and a few months later, in early 2023, it stopped work on a phase 2-ready depression candidate and also laid off more than half its staff. By July of that year, Eliem had shut down its only remaining program, a preclinical epilepsy candidate. With a decent chunk of change still in its coffers, though, the company began plotting a pivot, which arrived this year with the back-to-back acquisitions and subsequent rebrand.