BridgeBio, a biotech known for its model of setting up subsidiaries to house its R&D programs, is splitting off its oncology unit with $200 million in support from 11 investors.
Cormorant Asset Management, which backed BridgeBio as a startup, led the financing for the spinout, which will be known as BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, or BBOT. It was known inside BridgeBio as TheRas, for its research in RAS mutations, one of the most common drivers of cancer.
Raymond KelleherA long list of investors is joining Cormorant, including Omega Funds, Deerfield Management affiliates, GV, EcoR1 Capital, Wellington Management, Enavate Sciences, Citadel’s Surveyor Capital, Aisling Capital, Casdin Capital and Longwood Fund. BridgeBio had contributed an undisclosed Series A to the programs, Cormorant’s Raymond Kelleher told Endpoints News.
Given the autonomy of the hub-and-spoke model at BridgeBio, the transition will be “fairly easy,” BBOT CEO Eli Wallace said in an interview. BBOT has about 50 employees, he said. Wallace joined BridgeBio in late 2019 after serving as chief scientific officer at Peloton Therapeutics, which Merck bought for up to $2.2 billion earlier in 2019, leading to the approval of the cancer drug Welireg.
The BBOT carveout adds to a busy few quarters for BridgeBio. It sold the European rights for its ATTR-CM pill acoramidis to Bayer, has raised multiple rounds of financing and inked a skeletal disorder pact with Kyowa Kirin.
BBOT is already in the clinic with a KRAS G12C inhibitor that targets both the on and off states of the protein and the biotech plans to bring two additional assets into the clinic this year and in early 2025. The $200 million is expected to help BBOT gather clinical data on all three assets, Kelleher said.
Not the first time
BridgeBio has experience with spinouts. It split off Eidos Therapeutics, the company that housed acoramidis, and then reacquired it in October 2020. Now, BridgeBio expects a key FDA decision on the drug by the end of November.
BBOT is also not BridgeBio’s only foray into oncology. The company’s FGFR1-3 tyrosine kinase inhibitor infigratinib was granted accelerated approval by the FDA in May 2021. But its partner Helsinn later withdrew the NDA and pulled its European application for the drug, which was known as Truseltiq for certain forms of cholangiocarcinoma.
The focus is different at BBOT. The company is looking into RAS, an area of oncology R&D that has drummed up interest in recent years.
“In the context of the rest of their extensive portfolio, this portfolio wasn’t getting the recognition that it deserved,” said Kelleher, who will be on the BBOT board with BridgeBio co-founder Frank McCormick, BridgeBio CEO Neil Kumar and Omega Funds partner Michelle Doig.
The first clinical trial, already underway, is testing BBO-8520 in patients with KRAS G12C mutant non-small cell lung cancer. The goal is to bind to both the on and off states, unlike the two approved drugs in the class, Amgen’s Lumakras and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Krazati (by way of its Mirati acquisition). Other companies like Frontier Medicines are also looking at the active and inactive states. Kelleher said the hope is that the medicines will have a longer durability of response and better efficacy.
The biotech will also enter the clinic later this year with BBO-10203, which aims to block the interaction between RAS and PI3K alpha.
Pedro Beltran“Over 20 years now, people have tried to target PI3K alpha kinase activity and there are new approaches today, but all of them suffer from some degree from hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, because PI3K alpha kinase activity is critical for glucose homeostasis,” Wallace said. “Our approach, by inhibiting the RAS’ ability to activate PI3K alpha, completely avoids that,” he added, noting that RAS’ biology is not part of the glucose homeostasis.
Another asset is expected to enter clinical trials next year. BBO-11818 targets the on and off states for multiple KRAS forms.
Alongside Wallace in the C-suite is scientific chief Pedro Beltran, who’s been at BridgeBio since 2020. He was previously a head of biology and SVP at Unity Biotechnology and a 14-year Amgen vet prior to that.