BridgeBio spins off oncology company with $200 million in financing

Shown: 3D image of a KRAS oncogene iStock/Gilnature

BridgeBio announced Thursday that it has secured $200 million in financing to spin out a former subsidiary to develop a KRAS-focused oncology portfolio.

The company was called BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics (BBOT) and was initially founded as a subsidiary of BridgeBio known as TheRas. According to an SEC filing, the subsidiary has been in business since 2016 and entered into a research and development agreement with Leidos Biomedical Research in 2017.

BBOT’s mission now is to generate a pipeline of small molecule therapies targeting RAS and PI3K malignancies. The company plans to advance three programs, including BBO-8520, a direct inhibitor of KRAS that attempts to bind to the protein’s “on” and “off” states. The spin-out is enrolling patients with mutated non-small cell lung cancer in a Phase Ia/Ib study.

A second benefit that BBOT will promote is BBO-10203, a PI3Kα:RAS breaker that blocks the interaction between RAS and PI3Ka to inhibit PI3Kα/AKT effector signaling in tumors. The company plans to file an IND application sometime in the second quarter of 2024 and enroll patients later this year.

The other upside is BBO-11818, a pan-KRAS inhibitor that targets the ‘on’ and ‘off’ states of KRASG12X, and BBOT plans to file an IND sometime in early 2025.

The company is also pursuing a discovery-stage research program aimed at developing agents that target additional oncogenic drivers within the RAS and PI3K pathways.

“We believe the launch of BBOT better aligns investors with an opportunity that has been hidden in our pipeline, and our partnership with these new investors will allow us to pursue these oncology programs faster and with greater fidelity,” said Neil Kumar, CEO of BridgeBio. rack.

The spinout secured its $200 million funding in an oversubscription round led by Cormorant Asset Management and co-led by Omega Funds. There was also participation from GV (Google Ventures), Deerfield Management, EcoR1 Capital, Wellington Management, Enavate Sciences, Surveyor Capital, Casdin Captial, Aisling Capital and Longwood Fund.

BBOT will be led by Eli Wallace, BridgeBio’s CEO of oncology R&D. Wallace joined BridgeBio in 2019 after serving as Chief Scientific Officer at Peloton Therapeutics. Kumar will also serve as director of BBOT.

“Working with BridgeBio and a great group of investors, we look forward to seeing all three of our programs enter the clinic over the next twelve months,” Wallace said in a statement.

BridgeBio has previously taken the path of a spinout and launched QED Therapeutics in 2018. The company secured $65 million and wanted to develop infigratinib, a cancer drug that Novartis has abandoned. Infigratinib received accelerated approval from the FDA in 2021.

Tyler Patchen is a writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on LinkedIn.