TheRas, Inc.

Endpoints News sat down with Jeff Bluestone and Stephen Dilly after Sonoma Biotherapeutics announced earlier this week that Bluestone was stepping down from his CEO role and Dilly would be taking his place. Bluestone, a prominent academic and the first head of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, founded Sonoma six years ago to develop regulatory T cell therapies. On Monday, he handed the reins to Sonoma over to Dilly, the former CEO of Codexis and Sierra Oncology . This conversation has been substantially edited for length and clarity. Lei Lei Wu: Jeff, I’ll start with you. Not too long ago, we met to speak about Sonoma’s first clinical data. How long has this transition been in the works for? And why now? Jeff Bluestone: We needed to go find a great CEO. It took me a little bit more than 24 hours to do that, so we started the search a little while ago. But, very excited to have Stephen come on board. I just felt it was the right time to turn the reins over, because I think the company is a really great place right now. Someone emailed me this morning and said it’s a little bit like [Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Famer] Sandy Koufax . In his last year, he was an All-Star pitcher, shutouts every day. And I figured, might as well leave on a good note. Plus my grandkids, my wife and the rest of my life had a big impact as well. Wu: Are you a Dodgers fan? Bluestone: No, not at all. My father grew up a New York Giants fan, and we hated the Yankees and we hated the Dodgers. Wu: What’s next for you? Bluestone: It’s hard to use the word “retire.” It feels like a definitive ending, which it won’t be. I’m really lucky that Stephen is interested in having me continue to advise the company, which I will, and I’ll be on the board. Aside from that, I’m on the Gilead board, which I’ll continue to do, and then I want to spend some time thinking about how I can help young people. The idea of being able to help young student scientists is exciting to me. I’ll probably go back to UCSF for journal clubs and lab meetings and the like. And then finally, just do some of the things in life that I sacrificed over these many years. Wu: Stephen, turning to you now. What made you interested in this role? Stephen Dilly: One of the things that I believe in very strongly is that people are ideally suited to stages of journeys. What Jeff has done over the last six years at Sonoma, something that I would not be able to do, is take basic science and incredible insights and turn that from a concept into something that’s ready for going into people. I’m a drug developer. Dyed-in-the-wool drug developer. It’s a different thought process. The research process is inclusive and exploratory. The development process is very targeted. A lot of it is about the way you look at challenges, the way you address them, the way you move forward. And this company is absolutely in my sweet spot. A lot of the raw material is here to do something quite remarkable. — Lei Lei Wu → T cell receptor specialist Adaptimmune announced on Monday that its CEO of six years, Adrian Rawcliffe , left “in connection with the company’s restructuring.” It’s the end of an era for Adaptimmune, which won approval last year for the first cell therapy based on T cell receptors. Known as Tecelra , the therapy was approved for a rare cancer called synovial sarcoma. The news comes after Adaptimmune sold Tecelra , among other assets, and laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Most of the company’s executives departed with the layoffs, and Rawcliffe is the latest to do so. Chris Hill is now CEO as well as CFO. And the company’s longtime COO William Bertrand also left “in connection with the restructuring,” Adaptimmune said Monday . → Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has joined UnitedHealth Group ’s board, the massive health insurer said Tuesday. Gottlieb also sits on the boards of Pfizer and Illumina . The move comes as UnitedHealth has faced increasing pressure on its business with higher medical costs and scrutiny over insurance denials , as well as a ransomware attack on its Change Healthcare business. Former CEO Andrew Witty stepped down in May and was replaced by longtime UnitedHealth chief Stephen Hemsley . Its stock is down 38% this year. “We welcome his deep expertise and thought leadership as we strive to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone,” Hemsley said in a news release . → Juby Chandy will have new responsibilities at GSK on Dec. 1: The current GSK India CFO has been named VP of finance for the Asia Pacific region. Scrolling is required to go through Chandy’s 17-year career at GSK, where he has also served as area finance director for Southeast Asia and head of finance, general medicines, global pharma, among other roles. In October, Emma Walmsley conducted her last quarterly report at GSK before commercial chief Luke Miels takes over as CEO. → Philina Lee will be the next CEO at Sydney-based cancer biotech AdvanCell on Jan. 1. She’ll replace Andrew Adamovich , who will have a new role as managing director, Australia. Lee will take over a company that just stocked up on cash with a $112 million Series C in February. She had an 11-year run at Blueprint Medicines and was chief commercial officer until Sanofi bought the Ayvakit maker for more than $9 billion this year. (Incidentally, her former boss Kate Haviland said on LinkedIn this week that she’ll “continue contributing to the life sciences ecosystem” as a senior advisor at Jefferies .) AdvanCell’s lead program 212Pb-ADVC001 is a PSMA-targeting radioligand for patients with prostate cancer. “Philina’s leadership further strengthens our ability to establish the United States as a global hub while continuing to deliver innovation from Australia and cementing our position as a leader in targeted alpha radiotherapies,” Adamovich said in a statement . → At another Australian drugmaker, Mesoblast has tapped Bristol Myers Squibb and Allergan vet James O’Brien as CFO. O’Brien will be based in the US and was CFO at Cognition Therapeutics (2019-23) and Faron Pharmaceuticals (2023-24). Mesoblast’s head of finance Andrew Chaponnel had been interim finance chief since Josh Muntner hit the exit in 2021. At long last, the FDA approved Mesoblast’s mesenchymal stromal cell therapy Ryoncil in December 2024. → Gilead general counsel Deborah Telman will leave on Dec. 5, according to a terse SEC filing . Telman replaced Brett Pletcher as EVP, corporate affairs and general counsel in August 2022. Gilead did not provide any details about Telman’s departure. → As part of a restructuring, Nxera Pharma is trimming its leadership team, going from 10 execs to seven by March 2026 in a bid to cut operating expenses. Nxera is also pruning its workforce by about 15% across Japan and the UK, and focusing its sights on obesity, metabolic and endocrine therapies. While the company is cutting jobs elsewhere, it has recruited Patrik Foerch as CSO and president of Nxera Pharma UK , taking over the reins from Matthew Barnes . Foerch was CSO of Peptone , ran preclinical drug discovery at Sitryx , and had a 13-year stint at UCB . Nxera hopes that the cost-cutting measures will help the company reach its net sales forecast of 50 billion yen in 2030. → With ex- NGM Bio CEO David Woodhouse now at the controls, immunomodulatory upstart Nuvig Therapeutics has welcomed Celia Lin as CMO. Lin joined Santa Ana Bio in the same capacity shortly after the Versant biotech’s $125 million Series B last summer, but she stepped down nine months later. Peer Review covered Lin’s appointment as CMO of Vera Therapeutics and her departure in early 2024, when she was replaced by Robert Brenner . Nuvig disclosed a nine-figure Series B of its own last year and is evaluating NVG-2089 in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and immune thrombocytopenia. → Paolo Tombesi is retiring after CFO posts at multiple drugmakers over the past 25 years. He’s handing the job at Athena Countouriotis ’ Avenzo Therapeutics to Scott Lipman , who was promoted to CBO last year and will retain both duties. Tombesi helped Countouriotis steer their prior biotech, Turning Point Therapeutics , toward a multibillion-dollar exit to Bristol Myers Squibb . Along with Lipman, they reunited for Avenzo, raising more than $440 million over the past few years for small molecules and antibody-drug conjugates licensed from Chinese partners. Prior to that, Tombesi built his CFO chops at Epizyme and Insmed after holding regional CFO posts at Novartis and Bristol Myers. → 4D Molecular Therapeutics has found a new CFO after Uneek Mehra ’s departure in July. Kristian Humer held this job title at Foghorn Therapeutics and Viridian Therapeutics after 11 years with the healthcare investment banking group at Citi . Mehra took the CFO job at BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics , or BBOT. Shares $FDMT surged this summer when 4DMT notched a Phase 2 win with its gene therapy 4D-150 for diabetic macular edema, and there’s been an upward trend ever since. → Andy Nichols announced on LinkedIn that he’s “finally pulling the plug and disconnecting from corporate life, at least for a while,” after 40 years in the industry and two years at Jazz Pharmaceuticals as SVP of research, nonclinical development and clinical pharmacology. By the way, Zymeworks has named EcoR1 Capital partner Scott Platshon as acting chief investment officer. Jazz and Zymeworks outlined a Phase 3 win this week with their HER2 bispecific Ziihera in gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma, and their stock prices popped as a result. → Abraxane developer José Iglesias ’ first day as chief medical affairs officer at Agenus was Nov. 10, according to a Tuesday press release . Iglesias had a brief turn as CMO at Tim Lu ’s Senti Bio in 2020, and he reemerged as consulting medical chief for Panavance Therapeutics . Agenus is combining its anti-CTLA-4 antibody botensilimab with its PD-1 candidate balstilimab . Known colloquially as BOT/BAL , the combo is in Phase 3 for microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer. → French ADC maker Adcytherix has hired a pair of execs after a host of investors participated in its €105 million Series A . Medical chief Jan Schellens just held the same position at another ADC developer in France called Skymab Biotherapeutics , and he was CMO of Dutch biotech Byondis from 2019-23. Finance chief Jaime Arango had multiple roles over a nine-period at Merck , and he’s been CFO at Medincell and TreeFrog Therapeutics . → Eduardo Dunayevich will help steer the clinical direction of San Francisco-based Neurona Therapeutics , the CNS cell therapy startup that nabbed $ 102 million earlier this year for its epilepsy program. The new CMO was VP of clinical development and leader of the VMAT2 franchise at Neurocrine Biosciences . Dunayevich has been in industry for a quarter-century, making stops at Eli Lilly , Orexigen Therapeutics , Amgen , Takeda , Annexon Biosciences and Greenwich Biosciences along the way. → Elicio Therapeutics , co-founded by former MIT professor Darrell Irvine , has selected Marc Wolfgang as chief technology officer. Wolfgang just finished a stint as SVP of technical development and operations over at Flagship ’s Sail Biomedicines , which cut 30% of its staff in July. Wolfgang’s résumé also includes gigs at BioNTech , Cerulean Pharma , Momenta Pharmaceuticals , Millennium Pharmaceuticals , Biogen and Boehringer Ingelheim . → Kameel Farag helped set up cell therapy maker Aspen Neuroscience for a potential IPO (with a $115 million Series C disclosed Thursday). Now, a few months after leaving the CFO post at Aspen, he’s returning to the role on an interim basis at Akari Therapeutics . Farag built up his finance acumen during a 16-year career at Amgen and a three-year stint at Ionis . Akari has two ADC programs in preclinical development. → After bagging Y-mAbs in a $412 million all-cash deal , specialty drugmaker SERB Pharmaceuticals is bringing its CMO into the fold. Vignesh Rajah will serve in the same role of medical chief at SERB. Besides Y-mAbs, Rajah had roles at Sanofi and Wyeth , as well as a decade-long career at GSK. SERB picked up Y-mAbs and its neuroblastoma treatment Danyelza in August, hoping to further expand upon its own portfolio of more than 70 drugs. → Mosaic Therapeutics CEO Thomas Fuchs is already making an impact in his first month on the job, bringing in Samsara BioCapital venture partner Stephen Shuttleworth as CSO. AstraZeneca vet Barry Davies is retiring from the position and will be “on extended gardening and travel leave,” according to his LinkedIn. Shuttleworth was CSO, COO and executive director at Karus Therapeutics , and he chaired the scientific advisory board at the end of his 12-year career with the company. → To the Dallas metro area we go, where OncoNano Medicine has lassoed Brent Sorrells as COO. Sorrells spent eight years with Allakos , where he was promoted to VP of product development and strategy in mid-2024. Concentra Biosciences scooped up the biotech earlier this year, setting off a chain reaction of similar acquisitions for Kevin Tang . OncoNano is developing a STING agonist called ONM-501 for solid tumors. → Edgewise Therapeutics has welcomed Chris Martin to the board of directors, following the appointment of CFO Michael Nofi . Martin helped launch the COPD treatment Ohtuvayre as chief commercial officer at Verona Pharma . Merck bought Verona this summer for $10 billion. Lydia Ramsey Pflanzer contributed to this edition.

iStock, z_wei Blank check deals dwindled after a crazy 2021. Now, biotechs are starting to turn to special purpose acquisition companies again as an easy route to the public markets. In the six months it took for BBOT’s special purpose acquisition company deal to close, there were no biotech IPOs. “That’s quite striking,” Eli Wallace, CEO of the BridgeBio Therapeutics oncology spinout, told BioSpace in an interview. The long IPO drought could break soon, with LB Pharma announcing plans to seek one at the end of August, but for now, the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) route to the public markets is proving more popular. For BBOT, known legally as BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, it was a matter of the stars aligning perfectly, Wallace said. Although it officially came into existence only last year after splitting from BridgeBio, BBOT was mature enough and ready to go public. BBOT was one of five biotech SPACs that have taken place this year, representing an uptick of activity in the deal type that had fallen in popularity since the heyday of 2021. These deals have represented the only path to the public markets for now, as the IPO markets have been frozen shut. So are SPACs back? What Is a SPAC? First, a short primer on SPACs, also known as a blank check company. Sponsors form a SPAC by collecting interest from investors and conducting an IPO. Then the investors seek out and buy or merge with a target company. This process is called a de-SPAC. These deals can be attractive because they provide a shortcut to the public markets with potentially reduced costs. During the de-SPAC process, sponsors can also raise a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, which brings in more cash for the target company. In 2021, there were more than 600 SPACs formed across industries, according to SPACInsider. Biotech emerged as a particularly attractive target, with 22 deals happening among therapeutics developers that year, according to the data provider. At the same time, more and more biotechs were conducting traditional IPOs, too. Biotech was ripe for SPAC action because these companies are “very cash thirsty,” according to Michal Berkner, a partner with Baker McKenzie’s corporate M&A department. “Initially the model just worked and everybody kind of jumped on the bandwagon,” Berkner said in an interview. “It was an easy way to raise money and to go public.” But the party ended quickly, with de-SPACs sinking by 2023 to single digits. Redemption rates—the number of shareholders who choose to cash out at the point of merger—rose so high that SPACs were no longer a cheap option to get to the market. As shareholders cash out, the amount of cash available to go into the new target company is diminished. Redemption across all industries reached into the 90% range in 2022, according to SPACInsider. Berkner said an SEC crackdown and increasing difficulty in raising additional PIPE funds also contributed to the steep decline in SPAC deals. SPACs that did not find a deal in the heyday had to ask for extensions or return the cash. “When this model was no longer supplying the money and was just a route to an IPO—but an IPO with no money—then it just didn’t work out,” she said. And of course, the IPO market in general dried up. That’s where we are today. Although LB Pharma has filed paperwork to test out the market, Wallace pointed out that this step is quite different from actually IPOing. In June, Odyssey Therapeutics ended a quest to IPO that had been filed in January. This IPO drought has pushed the SPAC track into the forefront once more, Berkner said. Taking The SPAC Track So far this year there have been five de-SPACs in biotech. BBOT was one of the highest pro of the batch when it combined with Helix Acquisition Corp. II. Wallace, who led BBOT within BridgeBio and then took the helm of the spinout, looks back on the SPAC process “favorably.” He said there was a lot of clarity in the six-month closing timeframe and the valuation. There was no market volatility to contend with as BBOT had a guarnteed valuation during that tumultuous timeframe and the SEC review process went pretty smoothly. BBOT’s recent experience is backed up by SPACInsider, which says that companies in any industry can benefit from a SPAC process led by an experienced team right now, as the markets are roiled by political turmoil. “In a climate clouded by political, geopolitical, and macroeconomic uncertainty, seasoned sponsors with both industry and capital markets experience remain one of the structure’s biggest advantages,” SPACInsider wrote in a Q2 and H1 SPAC report . BBOT ended up with a 39% redemption rate—the second lowest since 2022, according to Wallace. The transaction brought in a $261 million PIPE and Helix’s $120 million trust account, for a total of $382 million in gross proceeds. BBOT is currently listed on the Nasdaq under that ticker with a market cap of $745 million. Wallace says the SPAC raise would represent “quite an IPO at any time but let alone in 2025.” “The fact that no one was able to crack the market . . . leads me to believe this was absolutely the right choice for us,” Wallace said. The BBOT team was very familiar with Cormorant Asset Management, which sponsored Helix and had been involved with the BridgeBio spinout. The biotech also had a very mature pipeline, with three assets already in Phase I, each with readouts expected over the next nine to 18 months, according to Wallace. It helped that Cormorant’s previous SPAC vehicle, Helix Acquisition Corp. I, merged with MoonLake Immunotherapeutics in April 2022. Of the many de-SPACs that occurred in those heady two years, MoonLake is among the highest performers. The inflammatory disease biotech’s shares have risen 344% since joining Nasdaq. Other biotechs that took the SPAC track during the peak have not been as lucky. EQRx, a biotech formed to develop cheaper drugs, folded as its mission failed. The shares had declined 71% by November 2023 compared to the company’s debut and the board called it quits, selling the remaining assets to Revolution Medicines. “If you look at the markets, a lot of these de-SPACs have not stood the test of time,” Berkner said, adding that there are certainly market forces at play. The SPAC vehicle has ultimately proven to be an expensive way to go public, despite initially being considered a cheaper option. SPACs typically IPO at $10 per share, which can be higher than what a biotech would debut at. Some biotech-oriented SPACs that were granted more time are still hunting for a target today, Berkner said. Across industries, the overwhelming majority of SPACs searching for a target right now are backed by sponsors who have already gone through the process, according to SPACInsider. Specifically, 80% of sponsors right now are “battle tested” serial SPACers, while just 20% are in it for the first time, according to the report. Berkner does not expect the SPAC vehicle to return to the height it reached in 2021 this time around. But the ones that are out hunting right now are lining up for when biotechs finally start to go public again. The gap in time since the last IPO suggests there is a big pipeline of companies ready to leap when the time is finally right. In a particularly risk-averse market like today’s, a SPAC does provide a somewhat safe place to park your money, as it will be returned in the event a target isn’t found, Berkner pointed out. “I think on the back end, the [SPAC] sponsors are kind of selling, ‘Let’s get ready. Let’s have this back in place so that when the market picks up again, when the mood changes, we’ll be there.’” This article appeared in BioSpace ‘s Biopharm Executive newsletter, which publishes every Wednesday morning. Subscribe here .

iStock, Tymofii Riabets After spinning out of BridgeBio in May 2024, BBOT had an eye on another round of fundraising in 2025. A SPAC quickly emerged as the best option. BBOT—known legally as BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics—has barely been an independent company for a year and has already made the jump to the public markets via a special purpose acquisition company deal. Too soon, you might be wondering? Only if you don’t realize that CEO Eli Wallace and his team have been working away at BBOT for years. The company’s origins go back to 2019, when Wallace was recruited to run the oncology research unit of BridgeBio by that company’s CEO Neil Kumar and University of California, San Francisco Professor Frank McCormick, a leader in RAS-mutated cancer. While Wallace reported to Kumar, he operated the unit as a “semi-autonomous biotech.” Eli Wallace Courtesy BBOT Meanwhile, BridgeBio was doing its own thing, moving acoramidis (now approved as Attruby ) toward regulatory approval and running other late-stage programs. Finally, the executives decided it was time for BBOT to launch from the nest to allow BridgeBio to focus its resources on commercialization efforts and the non-cancer assets. To do so, BBOT needed some new investors that were more focused on oncology to effectively support the unit’s pipeline. The companies split in May 2024, with BridgeBio remaining as a major stakeholder and Kumar and McCormick as members of the board. BBOT wasofficially born. The split allowed BBOT to raise $200 million in capital to support the clinical programs. “It wasn’t like we were really a series A–type company,” Wallace said of the fundraising. Having existed for four years prior to the spinout, “we were a much more mature biotech.” What followed was a summer of execution. Initial patients were dosed in June 2024 in the Phase I ONKORAS-101 trial that is testing BBO-8520 KRASG12C non-small cell lung cancer. Then, in October, patients received doses in the Phase I BREAKER-101 trial testing BBO-10203 in solid tumors. Wallace said BBOT always had plans to raise more capital in 2025 and had been keeping an open mind as to what form that took. He said the company considered a traditional crossover round or a regular IPO. But then Cormorant Asset Management’s Bihua Chen, who had been involved in the spinout, came forward with an idea: a SPAC. Cormorant was sponsoring Helix Acquisition Corp. II, the second blank check company of the Helix family after the successful launch of MoonLake Immunotherapeutics. “It just became a very attractive way to get the capital that we needed,” Wallace said. The deal was announced in February , with proceeds expected to be $450 million after Helix’s trust holdings and a private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing. Over the next six months, the deal churned through the regulatory process and Wallace said BBOT was insulated from the market volatility happening around it with a guaranteed valuation. “With everything that happened probably starting in March in the public market, I think in retrospect, it was absolutely the right decision,” Wallace said of the SPAC. On August 11, the de-SPAC was officially complete . BBOT began trading the next day. The team will ring the bell at Nasdaq next month. Cormorant’s Chen has even joined BBOT’s board, which is not typical after a de-SPAC. That made the SPAC path all the more clear for BBOT, Wallace said. “We can’t do the control experiment to see if IPO would have been better for us. Maybe those strengths of the company would have carried us through,” Wallace said. “I guess we’ll never know.” With the process complete, Wallace and the team head back to a place they know: executing on the clinical program. The company’s three clinical programs have readouts spaced out over the next 9 to 18 months. “This capital gives us the ability to be data driven and to move all three towards proof of concept and then really make a data-driven decision on the best path forward. It could be all three. It could be two. We’ll just have to see how it plays out,” Wallace said. “I feel very fortunate. I have a very strong team and a very strong set of investors, and so we’ll just keep doing what we do.”