Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc.

Pictured: Photo illustration featuring Avenzo Therapeutics CEO Athena Countouriotis/ Nicole Bean for BioSpace Having completed an oversubscribed $150 million Series A-1 funding round, Avenzo Therapeutics is looking to add at least one new cancer-focused asset in the next year, CEO Athena Countouriotis told BioSpace. The company will not be conducting in-house drug discovery, but rather licensing clinical-stage or near-clinical-stage compounds from other companies. It is a deliberate strategy undertaken by the startup, whose executives learned from their experience leading Turning Point Therapeutics, which Bristol Myers Squibb bought for $4.1 billion in 2022. Countouriotis recalled that it took Turning Point about three years from the start of discovery work to dosing of the first patient. Avenzo has an active clinical trial of an in-licensed product less than a year and a half after the company’s founding. “Rather than doing all of that inherent growth [here at Avenzo], we decided we would look for in-licensed assets,” said Countouriotis, who was president and CEO of Turning Point at the time of the BMS acquisiton. She and former Turning Point Chief Medical Officer Mohammad Hirmand started San Diego–based Avenzo in October 2022. It is a rather unique approach for a startup, Solon Moreira, assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, told BioSpace. “You see so many smaller companies out-licensing to Big Pharma,” Moreira said. Avenzo “got our attention because that’s not as usual.” Avenzo currently has about 15 employees, more than half of whom are supporting the trial, Countouriotis said. But while the approach may be uncommon, it’s one investors appear to be on board with. Avenzo originally sought to raise $45 million in this add-on round, but the company ended up with more than triple the original goal. The First Asset In January, Avenzo paid $40 million to license a CDK2 inhibitor from Allorion Therapeutics. The deal includes an exclusive option to purchase a preclinical program with an Investigational New Drug (IND) submission planned for early 2025. The compound, now dubbed AVZO-021, is in a Phase I/II study including patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and other advanced solid tumors. Countouriotis told BioSpace that dosing has begun in about five patients. This trial has multiple components. AVZO-021 will be tested as a single agent and in combination with the three currently approved CDK4/6 inhibitors for breast cancer: Novartis’ Kisqali, Pfizer’s Ibrance and Eli Lilly’s Verzenio. Countouriotis said there will “likely” be a combination with an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) before Phase I wraps up. While still in stealth mode last year, Avenzo raised nearly $197 million in its Series A round. The A-1 brought the company’s total fundraising to $347 million. With the new haul, Countouriotis expects to double the headcount to 30 in the next 12 months. “It’s going to be probably mostly R&D, and it’s going to be folks that are much more on the D than the R,” she said. Thomas Klueter, professor of entrepreneurship at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, said the founders of Avenzo likely realized that their competencies were in managing clinical development rather than developing breakthrough compounds. The Turning Point–BMS connection also helped. “What were the incentives for [Allorion] to license this molecule, which was already in Phase I, to an Avenzo?” Klueter wondered. “It has to be with the credibility of the founders, which also enabled them to convince investors.” Future Plans The Series A-1 raise provides working capital for two to three years, according to Countouriotis, though the company expects to spend much of that money on a new compound within a year. She added that the goal is to strike another licensing deal in the next 12 months and a third by early 2026, both for clinical-stage assets. Avenzo also wants to go public in the next two years, Countouriotis said. Within five years, Countouriotis would like Avenzo to have enough data to bring a New Drug Application to the FDA. The company has no plans to expand beyond oncology because that has been the career focus of founders Countouriotis and Hirmand, who have collectively brought 11 cancer drugs to market, Countouriotis said. Neil Versel is the business editor at BioSpace. You can reach him at neil.versel@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn or X.

Another pair of former Turning Point team members has raised a megaround this year. Avenzo Therapeutics closed a $150-million series A-1 on Tuesday to build a cancer company via licensing deals and acquisitions. The financing comes a month after Turning Point co-founders Jean Cui and Y. Peter Li nabbed a $100-million Series B for their small molecule oncology venture, BlossomHill. The A-1 round, which brings Avenzo’s total fundraising to $347 million, was led by New Enterprise Associates, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Investments, and Sands Capital. Other new investors also participated in the financing, including INCE Capital, TF Capital, Delos Capital, and Quan Capital.On the hunt for dealsAthena Countouriotis and Mohammad Hirmand, Turning Point’s former CEO and CMO, respectively, formed Avenzo in 2022 shortly after Bristol Myers Squibb acquired the biotech for $4 billion. Their mission was to build a best-in-class oncology pipeline through strategic partnerships.“We’ve been focused on partnering with early-stage companies that may not necessarily have the clinical development capabilities or expertise that we have at Avenzo, to progress important potential new therapies through clinical development,” Countouriotis told FirstWord. She serves as president and CEO of Avenzo. Avenzo gained its first candidate in January when it in-licensed AVZO-021 (formerly ARTS-021) from Allorion Therapeutics, along with an exclusive option for an undisclosed preclinical programme, for $40 million upfront. The latter is eligible for up to $1 billion in milestones.AVZO-021, which is being studied in a Phase I trial for HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and other advanced solid tumours, has the potential to be a best-in-class selective CDK2 inhibitor, according to Countouriotis. CDK2 is a well-known target of interest for cancer given its role as a key resistance mechanism to approved CDK4/6 agents, but compounds targeting the kinase have struggled in the clinic, including programmes from Nuvation Bio and Blueprint Medicine, which both received partial holds from the FDA due to a safety signal. AVZO-021’s selectivity could give it an edge over other programmes in development, particularly on safety.“There have been multiple assets that were designed as CDK2/4/6 inhibitors that we believe had too much off-target toxicity, hence why we believe a best-in-class CDK2 selective agent can have transformational potential in HR+/HER2- breast cancer,” Countouriotis said. Tuesday’s financing will help Avenzo continue bulking out its pipeline with dealmaking. While Countouriotis declined to disclose any other targets of interest, she said the company is on the lookout for small molecule programmes and antibody-drug conjugates.

BlossomHill Therapeutics has closed a $100 million Series B to bring three of its oncology small molecules into the clinic and collect early efficacy data around the second half of 2025. The San Diego biotech was created in 2020 by CEO J. Jean Cui and executive chair Y. Peter Li, the co-founders behind Turning Point Therapeutics. Cui had served as chief scientific officer at Turning Point, having been the lead inventor on its recently approved lung cancer drug Augtyro . She left in mid-2020, prior to its $4.1 billion sale to Bristol Myers Squibb in 2022. You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.