Conatus Pharma to merge with Histogen Inc and trade as Histogen Inc.

Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Histogen Inc., a privately-held regenerative medicine company with a novel biological platform that replaces and regenerates tissues in the body, announced the companies have entered into a definitive agreement under which Histogen will merge with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Conatus in an all-stock transaction. The new company will focus on advancement of its patented technology for dermatological and orthopedic indications. Histogen has built a pipeline of novel product candidates with demonstrated clinical activity that target high value markets. Its lead product candidate, HST 001 or Hair Stimulating Complex (HSC), is a minimally-invasive treatment to promote new hair growth in patients with male pattern hair loss, addressing an underserved multi-billion-dollar global market. In addition, Histogen is developing HST 002, a human-derived collagen and extracellular matrix dermal filler, and HST 003, an extracellular matrix scaffold for the treatment of articular cartilage defects. Histogen expects all three product candidates to reach clinical and regulatory inflection points in 2020.