Skye, Redx Reverse-Merge Into Fibrx, a $125M Fibrosis Play

Skye Bioscience (Nasdaq: SKYE) is reverse-merging with U.K.-based Redx Pharma to form Fibrx Therapeutics, a fibrosis-focused company backed by $125 million in fresh financing. The combined company keeps Skye’s Nasdaq listing but operates under the Fibrx name with Redx’s management team and board in charge. The deal, structured as a U.K. scheme of arrangement, is expected to close in Q4 2026.

It is the second fibrosis reverse merger of the 2026 biotech cycle, following Werewolf’s reverse merger with Ambros earlier in August. The pattern is survival, not a premium buyout. Skye paused its anti-obesity program nimacimab and sought strategic alternatives in the second quarter, leaving a cash-constrained public shell. Redx, whose own 2023 reverse merger collapsed when Concentra Biosciences swooped in and bought Jounce instead, finally gets a Nasdaq listing and runway into 2029.

The $125 million arrives in three tranches: a $68 million PIPE from Abingworth, British Business Bank, NEXTBio Capital, 5AM Ventures, and Redmile; a $36 million Redx Series A led by Abingworth; and a $22 million equity line from Redmile. When the dust settles, pre-transaction Skye holders own 5.38% of the company, Redx investors 46.17%, and the new financing syndicate 48.45%. Skye shareholders also get a contingent value right to 90% of any proceeds from monetizing nimacimab.

The asset that justifies the deal is RXC008, a GI-restricted pan-ROCK inhibitor for fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease, the scarring form of IBD. Approved anti-inflammatory drugs such as anti-TNFs, anti-IL-23s, and JAK inhibitors quiet inflammation but do not reverse established strictures. RXC008 targets the ROCK pathway, the signaling cascade that drives the fibrotic remodeling behind those strictures, and in preclinical studies it reversed fibrosis in the gut. It holds FDA Fast Track designation and an open U.S. IND, with a Phase 2 study starting in the second half of 2026 and topline data expected in H2 2028.

Fibrx also carries a preclinical DDR inhibitor and RXC007 (zelasudil), a ROCK2 inhibitor that finished a Phase 2 signal search in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and is available for partnering. Redx CEO Lisa Anson, a 20-year AstraZeneca veteran, will lead the combined company.

Skye shares closed at $2.17 Monday after a 1-for-8 reverse split that took effect August 24. Fibrx is expected to carry roughly 934 million fully diluted shares.

Source: Skye Bioscience – Redx Pharma transaction press release

What to watch: the Phase 2 fibrostenotic Crohn’s readout in H2 2028 is the whole thesis. If RXC008 shows it can reverse gut fibrosis, the ROCK pathway becomes a new IBD battleground. Until then, Fibrx is a reverse-merger survival bet on a long clinical clock.