Keros Therapeutics considers sale amid investor strain

Keros is weighing up a sale as a part of a poison capsule defence. Credit score: Catherine Falls Business through Getty Pictures.

Keros Therapeutics’ board of administrators has authorised a ‘poison capsule defence’— in response to growing investor curiosity in “influencing the corporate’s management”.

The transfer comes after sure buyers – together with one particular person holding 11.2% of Keros’s excellent frequent inventory as of 6 April 2025 – expressed a want to form the corporate’s strategic selections.

US-based Keros said that the limited-duration stockholder rights plan is designed to guard the integrity of its ongoing strategic assessment course of, which may embody the potential sale of the corporate.

Because of the announcement, Keros’s shares jumped by 13%, reaching $11.67 per share at market open. The corporate confirmed it has initiated a course of to guage strategic alternate options and plans to offer updates on the method inside 60 days of the ten April announcement.

This replace follows a collection of challenges confronted by Keros associated to its cibotercept medical programme for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In December 2024, Keros halted higher-dose cohorts from the Section II TROPOS examine (NCT05975905) after a security assessment revealed regarding antagonistic occasions, together with fluid buildup across the coronary heart – a growth that noticed the corporate’s shares plunge by greater than 77%.

Keros suspended the 2 higher-dose teams and finally ended the examine in January 2025, citing “the continued security assessment as a result of new observations of pericardial effusion antagonistic occasions”.

The candidate was positioned as a rival to MSD’s PAH drug Winrevair (sotatercept). The US Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted Winrevair in March 2024 and it’s projected to achieve blockbuster standing, producing as much as $6.4bn in world gross sales by 2030, as per GlobalData, the father or mother firm of Pharmaceutical Expertise.

Keros’s lead candidate is a TGF-beta inhibitor dubbed elritercept. The candidate is being investigated within the ongoing Section III RENEW examine (NCT06499285), concentrating on transfusion-dependent anaemia in very low, low or intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) sufferers.

In December 2024, Takeda inked a deal value as much as $1.3bn with Keros to additional develop, manufacture and commercialise elritercept worldwide outdoors of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. In keeping with GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Middle, elritercept is projected to generate as much as $425m in 2030, if permitted.

Keros can also be advancing its pipeline with KER-065, a candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which has proven optimistic early-stage outcomes. The corporate introduced in March 2025 that KER-065 was properly tolerated in Section I trials, with proof of activin inhibition throughout “tissues of curiosity”. Following this announcement, Keros stated it plans to interact with regulatory authorities in Q3 2025, with a Section II trial for DMD anticipated to start in Q1 2026, pending regulatory suggestions.