Two small-cap biotechs are betting that artificial intelligence can succeed where a decade of drug development has stalled. Chemomab Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CMMB) and Scipher Medicine announced this morning that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement, combining Chemomab’s clinical-stage antibody nebokitug with Scipher’s AI-powered precision medicine platform to attack rheumatoid arthritis from a completely different angle than anything currently on the market.
The numbers explain why this matters. No new mechanism of action has been approved for rheumatoid arthritis since 2012, and no new branded therapy has reached the market since 2019. Only about a third of RA patients achieve low disease activity on current treatments, and the two leading drug classes now carry FDA boxed warnings. It’s a $24 billion market that has effectively been standing still for over a decade while patients cycle through drugs that only partially work.
Chemomab’s contribution is nebokitug, a first-in-class antibody that blocks CCL24, a protein tied to both inflammation and fibrosis. That dual mechanism is the differentiator. Most RA drugs on the market today only address inflammation, leaving the fibrotic, tissue-scarring side of the disease untouched. Nebokitug has already produced positive results across five clinical trials, including a Phase 2 study in primary sclerosing cholangitis that hit its safety endpoint and improved a range of fibrosis-related markers.
Scipher brings the half of the equation that makes this deal genuinely interesting. The company’s AI Network Medicine platform independently ranked CCL24 as the top therapeutic target for RA, arriving at the same conclusion Chemomab had reached through years of bench research, but from a completely different direction. Scipher also owns PrismRA, the only rheumatoid arthritis test with Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement approval for predicting how a patient will respond to treatment. That test will be used to select patients for the upcoming Phase 2 trial, meaning the study isn’t just testing whether nebokitug works. It’s testing whether AI-selected patients respond better than an unselected population, which is precisely the kind of precision-medicine proof point regulators and physicians have been waiting for.
Under the deal terms, the combined company will operate as Scipher Medicine Corporation and trade under the ticker SCIP. Scipher shareholders will hold roughly 68% of the combined entity, with Chemomab shareholders holding about 32% plus contingent value rights tied to nebokitug milestones. A syndicate led by Northpond Ventures, with Khosla Ventures, Blue Owl Healthcare Opportunities, and Neuberger funds participating, is putting in $30 million to fund the combined company. That capital, together with existing cash, is expected to carry operations into the second half of 2028, well past the Phase 2 readout expected in the first half of that year.
The deal values the combined company at $150 million before the new financing, a modest figure for a company sitting on a potential first-in-market precision medicine therapy for a disease affecting more than 20 million people worldwide. Scipher also brings existing revenue through biopharma partnerships and its immunology data business, giving the combined company more than one path to funding its pipeline while the RA trial plays out.
The transaction still needs shareholder approval from both companies and an SEC-cleared S-4 registration statement, with closing targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
