GlycoMimetics (now Crescent Biopharma) completes merger and $200 million private financing

GlycoMimetics, Inc., which is now Crescent Biopharma, Inc., completed its merger with Crescent Biopharma on June 13, 2025, according to a Form 8-K filed June 18. The combined company began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market as CBIO on June 16. Immediately before the closing, Crescent completed a private financing of about $200.0 million in gross proceeds. The press release says the financing includes conversion of $37.5 million of previously issued convertible notes plus accrued interest. The company is a Cayman Islands company with its principal office in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Stockholders of GlycoMimetics approved the proposals at a special meeting on June 5, 2025. Before the merger, GlycoMimetics carried out a 1-for-100 reverse stock split, effective June 13. Each share of Crescent common stock was converted into 0.1445 shares of the combined company, adjusted for the split. The filing says GlycoMimetics was a shell company immediately before the merger, so the 8-K includes the information a general registration statement on Form 10 would contain.

Dilution and the old holders

The 8-K puts the old holders at a small share of the company. GlycoMimetics's former securityholders own about 2.7% of the capital stock after the merger on a fully diluted basis. Crescent securityholders, including those who bought in the pre-closing financing, own about 97.3%. The combined company then had 19,549,684 shares of common stock and equivalents, assuming full exercise of pre-funded warrants, including conversion of preferred stock and excluding outstanding equity awards.

That total is made up of 13,892,562 shares of common stock, 2,767,122 pre-funded warrants and 2,890,000 shares underlying Series A preferred stock. The financing itself bought 85,506,824 shares of Crescent common stock and 19,149,690 Crescent pre-funded warrants immediately before the merger. Pre-funded warrants let buyers hold a stake without paying the full price up front, and they carry only a nominal exercise price.

The financing and what it funds

The 8-K says the $200.0 million includes $40.5 million of proceeds from previously issued notes, counted with accrued and unpaid interest and premiums. The release cites $37.5 million of converted notes plus accrued interest. The financing was led by Fairmount, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and BVF Partners, with other healthcare-focused investors. Neither document names a placement agent or financial advisor for the financing.

The company says the financing, with existing cash, is expected to support operations through 2027. It names CR-001, a PD-1 x VEGF bispecific antibody, as its lead program, with an IND filing planned for the fourth quarter of 2025 and proof-of-concept clinical data expected in the second half of 2026. The filings give no clinical data for CR-001 yet. The company says the antibody is designed to replicate the pharmacology of ivonescimab, a different drug whose supporting Phase 3 trial the release cites as a third-party study in China, so the idea rests on another company's results.

GlycoMimetics's own finances

GlycoMimetics's 10-K for 2024, filed Feb 13, 2025, gives the financial position that the merger was meant to fix. It reports a net loss of $37.9 million in 2024, net cash used in operating activities of $31.1 million, and cash and cash equivalents of $10.7 million at Dec 31, 2024. The report says the company had no committed source of additional funding other than the expected private placement. It also says that without the merger and the placement, there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.

The 8-K discloses a change in auditors. Ernst & Young was dismissed on June 13, 2025, and its reports on GlycoMimetics's prior statements carried an explanatory paragraph on going-concern doubt. The 8-K does not say why the audit committee chose to change firms.

The 8-K also includes a sublease, dated May 28, 2025, for about 24,750 square feet of office space at 300 Fifth Avenue in Waltham, Massachusetts, from Nano Dimension USA Inc.

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