09/11/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/11/2026 04:03
Filed by Research Alliance Corporation III pursuant to Rule 425
under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended,
and deemed filed pursuant to Rule 14a-12
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended
Subject Company: Research Alliance Corporation III (File No. 001-43302)
On September 10, 2026, the Company (as defined below), a party to the proposed Transactions (as defined below) with RACC (as defined below), through its social media account, shared the following post on LinkedIn:
On September 10, 2026, Ike Greenstein, the Chief Financial Officer of the Company, through his social media account, shared the following post on LinkedIn:
On September 10, 2026, Josh Distler, the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, through his social media account, shared the following post on LinkedIn:
The following article from STAT was made available by the Company on September 10, 2026 on the Company's LinkedIn.
The original article can be found at https://www.statnews.com/2026/09/04/angelman-syndrome-drug-ultragenyx-oak-hill-ionis/:
After failure of Angelman syndrome drug, experts see hope in other experimental therapies
Like Ultragenyx, Ionis and Oak Hill Bio are developing their own antisense treatments
The failure of an experimental drug for Angelman syndrome, a rare genetic disease that causes severe developmental delays, was a major blow to patients and the drug's maker, Ultragenyx, which announced the outcome of its late-stage trial earlier this week.
But experts cautioned that there is still reason to think similar experimental medicines might yet succeed. That could potentially pave the way for genetic medicines in other neurological conditions that could restore cognition, communication, and other skills in patients with intellectual disabilities.
"I don't think this really says anything about the other trials that are ongoing," said Mark Zylka, an Angelman researcher at the University of North Carolina. "I wouldn't say that just because this one trial fails, that means [this is a bad mechanism]."
Ultragenyx's drug, called GTX-102, was the first of three so-called "unsilencing" drugs in Phase 3 trials. And even before it read out, there had been suggestions it was the least potent.
Angelman patients have mutations in-or are completely missing-the mother's copy of a gene called UBE3A, thought to be essential for communication between neurons and other brain functions. Typically, only the mother's copy of the gene is active in neurons, while a father's copy is silenced. Without the mother's copy, the brain is left without this essential tool.
GTX-102 is an antisense drug, a short strand of DNA or RNA that can sneak into a cell and interfere with the genetic machinery. In this case, it was designed to block a piece of RNA whose job is to silence dad's copy of UBE3A, thus reactivating the dormant gene. (The strategy is often referred to as "stopping the stop.")
In monkey studies, the drug looked promising. Paternal UBE3A levels appeared to rise substantially after treatment.
At the time, two other drugmakers, Roche and Ionis, were developing similar antisense drugs. Roche paused its efforts in 2023 after a Phase 1 trial and licensed its molecule to a startup called Oak Hill Bio. But Roche scientists kept studying the mechanism.
They tried to re-create all three antisense medicines, including the one from Ultragenyx, and test them in a mouse model. The results were striking: GTX-102 was vastly less effective at raising UBE3A levels than drugs from Roche or Ionis. The difference was particularly apparent when using a potentially more sensitive way to measure UBE3A levels.
"It seems like theirs is the weakest [drug]," said Art Beaudet, the Baylor College of Medicine geneticist who first linked UBE3A to Angelman syndrome in 1997.
Stormy Chamberlain, section head of neurogenomics at Roche, presented the data at a closed-door meeting of the Angelman Syndrome Foundation in July. A group from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, also compared the three drugs but has said nothing publicly about its results.
Ultragenyx's drug also showed toxicity in its Phase 1 trial. Each of the first five patients treated developed what the company referred to as lower-extremity weakness, with two losing the ability to walk. Patients recovered when they came off the drug, but Ultragenyx had to significantly limit the dose it used in subsequent trials for safety.
When Oak Hill announced plans to go public this summer, executives presented some of Chamberlain's data as part of its investors deck and in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By the company's rough calculations, the dose Ultragenyx was using in humans increased UBE3A protein levels by 1% or 2%, Oak Hill CEO Josh Distler said. Roche's drug increased those levels by about 50%.
It is not, of course, shocking that a company's internal analysis would find its own molecule superior. And the analysis is not foolproof. For the study, Roche built a drug like GTX-102-companies typically find the designs for rival companies' drugs in patent filings - but it may not be identical.
Notably, patients in early, open-label trials for all three drugs showed striking improvements in measures of communications, behavior, and cognition. If the medicines were significantly different, ideally that would have been borne out in those studies.
Ionis expects to deliver data from its own Phase 3 trial next year. Oak Hill is just starting its Phase 3 and expects data in early 2029.
Among the open questions with these medicines is how well they permeate the brain. Antisense drugs, when injected into the spine, travel into the brain; but in monkeys, they hit different regions to different degrees. In humans, it's impossible to know which neurons are reached. "You can't do a brain biopsy," Zylka said.
Other methods of delivering antisense or future gene therapy or gene-editing drugs might have wider distribution.
Beaudet also wonders if Ultragenyx treated patients who were too old. The company enrolled children 4 to 17 in its Phase 3 study. He thinks those patients can benefit from a genetic medicine but that, in a developmental disorder, the most striking results will be in the youngest children.
"The drugs are doing something," he said. "Exactly how marvelous it will be if we treat very young we won't know."
Ionis is gathering data on patients under age 2 to find out. Allyson Berent, who helped develop GTX-102 at the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics before it was purchased by Ultragenyx, said she believes it would be a mistake to draw conclusions about when to treat patients based on this week's failure.
Berent, whose daughter Quincy has received the drug in clinical trials, noted that the early Ultragenyx study showed considerable benefit over natural history across all ages tested.
This "doesn't speak to age effect to me," she said in an email. "It speaks to the fact that maybe there is a placebo effect of potential change that we all must consider."
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The proposed transactions ("Transactions") contemplated by the Business Combination Agreement, dated, July 26, 2026 (the "Business Combination Agreement"), entered into between Research Alliance Corporation III, a Cayman Islands exempted company ("RACC"), OHB Pediatrics Ltd., a company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales (the "Company"), and the shareholders of the Company will be submitted to shareholders of RACC for their consideration. RACC has filed a registration statement on Form S-4 (File No. 333-298537) (the "Registration Statement") with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which includes a prospectus and preliminary and definitive proxy statements to be distributed to RACC's shareholders in connection with RACC's solicitations of proxies from RACC's shareholders with respect to the proposed Transactions and other matters described in the Registration Statement, as well as the prospectus relating to the offer of the Company's business in connection with the completion of the proposed Transactions. After the Registration Statement has been declared effective, RACC will mail a definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant documents relating to the proposed Transactions and other matters described in the Registration Statement to RACC's shareholders as of a record date to be established for voting on the proposed Transactions. Before making any voting or investment decision, RACC's shareholders, the Company's shareholders, and other interested persons are urged to read these documents and any amendments thereto, as well as any other relevant documents filed with the SEC by RACC in connection with the proposed Transactions and other matters described in the Registration Statement because they contain important information about RACC, the Company and the proposed Transactions. Shareholders may obtain free copies of the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus, the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other documents filed by RACC with the SEC, once available, without charge, at the SEC's website located at www.sec.gov, or by directing a written request to Research Alliance Corporation III, 600 Fifth Avenue, 23rd Floor, New York, New York 10020.
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