BBO-8520

None\n For a while, special purpose acquisition companies were biotech’s hot ticket to the public markets. While interest in this path has died down in recent years, BridgeBio’s former cancer unit thinks it could work for them.BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, which is working on a pipeline of small-molecule therapeutics targeting RAS and PI3Kα malignancies, is planning to merge with publicly listed blank check company Helix Acquisition Corp. II, according to a Feb. 28 release.The biotech—which spun out of BridgeBio Pharma in May 2024—has $100 million to hand, while Helix is bringing $196 million to the table. Combined with $260 million from a planned concurrent PIPE financing of its common stock, the merged company should have access to around $550 million in hard cash.That financing will be led by Cormorant Asset Management and will see the likes of Novo Holdings, ADAR1 Capital Management, Omega Funds and BioCapital Advisors, to name a few, scooping up the stock.The proceeds will go toward pushing BBOT’s three programs through early-stage clinical trials. They include the KRAS inhibitor BBO-8520, which is undergoing a phase 1 trial for non-small cell lung cancer. There’s also BBO-10203, which is designed to inhibit RAS-driven PI3Kα-AKT signaling in tumors and is in a phase 1 study for breast, colorectal and non-small cell lung cancers.A KRAS inhibitor called BBO-11818 is also being readied to enter the clinic in the first half of the year.“This financing and transaction mark a significant milestone for our company,” BBOT CEO Eli Wallace, Ph.D., said. “We believe this transaction is the optimal path to advance our programs and make a meaningful impact on patients affected by deadly cancers.” Helix went public a year ago via a $184 million IPO and with the stated aim of finding a biotech to merge with. The Boston-headquartered SPAC is sponsored by fund manager Cormorant.“BBOT\'s team has some of the brightest minds in oncology, with a proven track record of developing new medicines,” Bihua Chen, who is CEO of both Cormorant and Helix, said in this morning’s release.“The company’s pipeline has the potential for paradigm-shifting impact on the treatment of some of the highest prevalence malignancies and we look forward to seeing patient impact further materialize as the clinical trials move forward,” Chen added.BBOT’s merger is a rare example of a SPAC deal in biotech in 2025. After a number of high-profile announcements were made in late 2022, the reverse merger model once again dropped off in 2023, with a few exceptions, such as cardiovascular-focused Medera’s reverse merger with Keen Vision Acquisition in September 2024.

The second blank-check vehicle from Cormorant’s Bihua Chen plans to take BridgeBio’s oncology spinout onto the Nasdaq. The special purpose acquisition company — known as Helix Acquisition Corp. II — will combine with BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, the companies said Friday morning. The deal includes about $260 million by way of a PIPE and $196 million from Helix’s trust account. The company will trade under the ticker “BBOT,” which is its abbreviation. BBOT is expected to have approximately $550 million in cash and a pro forma equity value of about $949 million when the deal closes, the companies said. They anticipate it will close in the third quarter. “They reached out to us, and it felt like a good way to raise capital in today’s market,” BBOT CEO Eli Wallace said in an interview with Endpoints News . BBOT was planning to do another round of funding in 2025, but hadn’t selected the exact mechanism when Helix had approached it, Wallace said. BBOT and its board evaluated a crossover and IPO, or the “traditional route,” as its “main other option.” Five biotech startups have gone public via an IPO in the US so far this year . The Helix-BBOT merger is one of a few biotech SPAC deals to take place in recent quarters. The alternative route to going public had surged in popularity during 2020 and 2021 but then cooled off in the ensuing years. Chen and her team have been successful with the financing vehicle in the past. They took Swiss immunology biotech MoonLake public in 2022 . The clinical-stage drug developer had been trading well above its initial share price for the first two years post-combination, but its stock price $MLTX is now down about 22% year-to-date. Chen’s second SPAC had been hunting for a combination target for about a year. The blank-check company closed its initial public offering of $184 million last February. Shortly after, the Cormorant leader told Endpoints News she was looking for the “same rigor in terms of science and data and a commercial aspect” in a SPAC combination target, following the MoonLake deal. Her investment firm was already familiar with BBOT. Cormorant led a $200 million round in BBOT when it split from BridgeBio last May. BridgeBio had a 38% ownership stake in BBOT as of a corporate presentation this month. That spinout round, technically considered a Series B, had included a who’s who of crossover investors, including Omega Funds, Deerfield Management affiliates, GV, EcoR1 Capital, Wellington Management, Enavate Sciences, Citadel’s Surveyor Capital, Aisling Capital, Casdin Capital and Longwood Fund. BBOT is in the clinic with two drug candidates so far. Its first oral small molecule is BBO-8520 , a KRAS G12C inhibitor that targets both the on and off states of the protein and is being studied in patients with certain forms of non-small cell lung cancer. The other oral small molecule, BBO-10203, aims to block the interaction between RAS and PI3K alpha. That Phase 1 in advanced solid tumors began in October. “In the context of the rest of their extensive portfolio, this portfolio wasn’t getting the recognition that it deserved,” Cormorant’s Raymond Kelleher, a BBOT board member, told Endpoints at the time of the company’s unveiling in 2024. BBOT was previously known inside BridgeBio as “TheRas” for its work on a common driver of cancer known as RAS mutations. Amgen and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Mirati opened up the KRAS field with their respective Lumakras and Krazati approvals. The 60-employee biotech plans to move a third program into the clinic next quarter, as well, Wallace said. He joined BridgeBio in 2019 after serving as science chief at Peloton Therapeutics, the Welireg developer bought by Merck in 2019. He noted BBOT expects to have clinical data for all three of its programs over the coming 18 months.