Actio team launches Setara with $90m after Jazz buys its epilepsy drug

Setara Biosciences launched on Friday 30 October 2026 with $90 million in financing, formed by the leadership of Actio Biosciences to carry on the programmes Jazz Pharmaceuticals did not buy when it acquired Actio in August¹.

Jazz paid $1.3 billion for Actio to get its KCNT1 epilepsy programme, a drug in early clinical testing that blocks a faulty protein linked to seizures¹. Setara takes the rest of the pipeline. David Goldstein, who ran Actio, is chief executive, and two Actio alumni, David Breckenridge and Cayce Denton, are chief scientific officer and chief financial officer¹.

The pipeline and the money

The lead asset is STAR-0871, a pill that inhibits the ion channel protein TRPV4. Setara plans to take it into a Phase 1b study in patients with a severe form of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease by the end of the year, targeting the type 2C form, and to run a Phase 2 study in overactive bladder¹. Alongside it sit a few discovery-stage programmes in other rare diseases, epilepsy and migraine¹.

The investor list is largely Actio's. Deerfield Management and Canaan are among the backers, and Jazz agreed in the August buyout to take a minority stake in Setara¹. Jason Fuller, a partner at Deerfield, said Actio's sale to Jazz "validates the genetics-driven approach to drug discovery and development that underpins Setara"¹.

What it means for the market

The deal structure is the point for investors. A large acquirer bought one asset, left the remaining science with the founding team, and kept a minority position in the successor, while the same early investors put money back in¹. That gives the original backers a second exposure to the platform without the acquirer having to fund early discovery itself.

Ion channels are an established commercial target: Vertex built a cystic fibrosis business worth billions on drugs aimed at them, and they are now being pursued in neurological conditions such as pain and Parkinson's disease¹. Setara is betting that blocking an overactive TRPV4 channel can address many of the mutations behind Charcot-Marie-Tooth¹.

Goldstein framed the spinout as a choice against selling everything. "We didn't start all this to just sell everything for whoever is willing to buy it for a certain price," he said¹.

Caveats

STAR-0871 has not yet entered the planned patient study. Goldstein said Charcot-Marie-Tooth is harder to measure than epilepsy, where lowering seizure rates is a clear goal, because it progresses slowly and weakens several muscle groups in complicated ways¹. The report does not give the split of the $90 million between investors or Jazz's stake size. The Phase 1b study is due to start by the end of the year¹.