RNA specialist Greenlight to go private at sharply reduced value

GreenLight Biosciences, a developer of RNA-based products for agriculture and human health, has agreed to be acquired by a group of private buyers for about $45.5 million in cash, a small fraction of what Greenlight was worth when it went public in 2021. The Massachusett-based firm was founded in 2008 to develop a cell-free method of making RNA. Greenlight went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company in a deal that valued it at about $1.2 billion. Greenlight has been touting two RNA-based products in its development pipeline—an insecticide intended to help farmers fight the Colorado potato beetle and a miticide that targets the varroa destructor mite, which is considered a threat to honeybees worldwide. Executives said in a recent presentation that they expect to launch seven agricultural active ingredients in all by 2026. But the company has little revenue, and in its first-quarter financial report it acknowledged having enough cash and equivalents to fund operations only into the second quarter.