Defeating cancer with
radiopharmaceutical medicines
Validated solid tumor targets
Macrocyclic peptide-mimetics
Actinium-225 (alpha isotope)
KANAGAWA, JAPAN – PeptiDream Inc., a public Kanagawa-based biopharmaceutical company (“PeptiDream”)(Tokyo:4587) today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with San Diego, California, US – based RayzeBio Inc., (“RayzeBio”) for the discovery and development of peptide-radioisotope (RI) conjugates for use as therapeutics (“Peptide Radiotherapeutics”).
RayzeBio is a dynamic work environment that looks for passionate truth-seeking
individuals who want to make a material impact in improving outcomes for people
with cancer. We value our employees and strive for a collegial, inclusive and honest
team culture. We offer full benefits as well as stock options to all employees.
RayzeBio, Inc.
9880 Campus Point Dr
Suite 410
San Diego, CA 92121
info@rayzebio.com
@ 2020 All rights reserved, Insight
President and CEO
Ken is President and CEO at RayzeBio. Ken’s experience spans clinical medicine, basic science research, venture capital, and entrepreneurship. Prior to RayzeBio, he was President and CEO of Metacrine, Inc. where he led the organization from research to mid-stage clinical development of a best-in-class drug for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and also positioned the company for IPO. From 2010 to 2016, Ken was the co-founder and CEO of Ariosa Diagnostics (acquired by Roche) where he led the organization from early research to eventual global commercialization of the Harmony Prenatal Test in over 100 countries. Ken also serves as Executive Chairman of Omniome, a company developing a disruptive sequencing technology.
Prior to being an operator and entrepreneur, Ken worked as a venture capitalist at Venrock as well as consultant at McKinsey & Company. Ken trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and specialized in gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Washington along with a scientific research fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He earned his B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.D. from UCSF.
Chief Technology Officer
Deborah is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and co-founder of RayzeBio, Inc. Prior to RayzeBio, Deborah held a number of scientific leadership positions in biotech, focused on translational drug development. At Nektar Therapeutics, she conceived of and led the pre-clinical and early clinical development of an Immuno-Oncology pipeline, starting with NKTR-214, a next-generation IL-2 receptor agonist, currently in several pivotal Phase 3 oncology trials and later an IL-15 receptor agonist and TLR 7/8 agonist. At FivePrime Therapeutics, Deborah led a team that contributed to the clinical development of novel biologics for pan-FGF and CSF1 inhibition for oncology. While at Chiron Corporation she initiated and led a large proteomics effort to guide oncology target discovery, including the discovery of peptide-mimetic binders (‘peptoids’). At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, she assumed an academic leadership role as a tenured Principal Investigator, focusing on new biomaterials. Deborah’s formal education is in Chemistry, earning a PhD from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA where she also learned to fly small airplanes.
Senior Vice President, Development & Operations
Head of Discovery
Derek has over 20 years of medicinal chemistry and drug discovery experience. Prior to joining RayzeBio, he was Senior Director, Medicinal Chemistry for the GI-Drug Discovery Unit at Takeda, where he led a team of over 30 small molecule, peptide, oligonucleotide chemists and in vitro pharmacology, delivering both small molecule and peptide development candidates.
Prior to Takeda, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer, contributing to target validation, hit-to-lead and drug discovery in Neuroscience and Immunology.
Derek earned his Ph.D. in Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is an inventor on multiple patents and has published and presented broadly on small molecule lead optimization and fragment based drug discovery. He co-organized the Fragment-based Lead Discovery conference in San Diego in 2018.
Gary has over 15 years of drug discovery and translational research experience at both strategic and operational levels. Before joining RayzeBio, he was SVP, Translational Medicine at QED Therapeutics, leading all aspects of translational research and companion diagnostics. Prior to QED, he was VP of Translational Research at Ignyta, where he built a highly productive research team from ground up and led multiple programs to NDA and IND milestones. Before Ignyta, he held various scientific positions with increasing responsibilities at Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, contributing to target ID/validation, drug discovery and multiple drug approvals.
Gary earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is an inventor of multiple patents, and has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and delivered over 70 invited talks and meeting presentations.
VP, Finance
Kathie has 20 years of accounting and finance experience. Prior to joining RayzeBio, she served as VP of Finance at Metacrine, where she led the buildout of the accounting and finance infrastructure and was involved in the preparation efforts of its initial public offering. Prior to Metacrine, she served as VP of Finance at Biotix where she led all aspects of accounting and finance operations and was involved in the business development efforts resulting in its acquisition by Mettler Toledo. Prior to Biotix, she served in various accounting positions with increasing responsibilities at Zogenix, Metabasis and Discovery Partners International.
Kathie is a certified public accountant (inactive) and holds a B.S. in Business Administration (Finance) from San Diego State University.
Board Member
Jerel is a Managing Director at Versant Venture Management, LLC, a healthcare investment firm. He has played a critical role in Versant’s company creation strategies and has been heavily involved in a number of public and private biotech companies such as Quanticel (sale), Crispr (CRSP), Inception 4 (sale), Inception 5 (sale), Northern (sale), BlueRock (sale), Repare (RPTX), Akero (AKRO), Chinook, Turnstone, Ventus, and Tentarix. Jerel was promoted to Managing Director at Versant in 2016.
Prior to joining Versant, Jerel was an Associate Principal at McKinsey and Company where he advised healthcare corporations in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical device and molecular diagnostics. He has worked in a number of healthcare markets globally including the U.S., Europe, China, and Russia. Jerel earned his doctorate from Stanford University, where he also completed his post-doctoral research.
Board Member
Aaron is a co-founder of RayzeBio and currently serves as a Venture Partner in the Medicxi investment team. Prior to joining Medicxi, Aaron was a partner with Apple Tree Partners (ATP), where he was a key member of the life science investment team since 2011. While at ATP, he played a leading role in assembling several ATP portfolio companies, previously serving on the boards of Akero Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKRO), Corvidia Therapeutics (acquired by Novo Nordisk), Elstar Therapeutics, Limelight Bio, and Syntimmune acquired by Alexion). During his time at ATP, Aaron was also a board observer at Stoke Therapeutics (NASDAQ: STOK) and led many of ATP’s crossover and public biotech investments. Aaron is also a founding board member of Silagene. Prior to joining ATP, Aaron held roles in private equity and investment banking. Aaron received a BS in Finance and International Business from NYU Stern’s School of Business.
Bong originally joined Venrock in 2009 and has been doing public and private investing since 2004. He did his medical training at Harvard’s Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary (ophthalmology), Stanford Hospital (internal medicine) and UCSF (pathology).
Bong works predominantly on Venrock’s public and cross-over biotech fund, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners.
Bong earned his B.A. from Yale University, his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Yi Larson currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer of LianBio, a biopharmaceutical company a biopharmaceutical company focusing on precision and innovative therapeutics with operations in the United States and China.
Previously, she was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage precision oncology company. In this role, she oversaw all aspects of the finance and accounting organization, led corporate strategy and business development, helped raise over $1 billion through 3 follow-on offerings, and spearheaded deal-making activities, including the outlicensing of Turning Point’s lead drug candidate repotrectinib for the Chinese market.
Prior to Turning Point Therapeutics, Ms. Larson was a Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs where she worked for over 12 years. She advised senior management teams and boards on a range of strategic and financial matters, successfully executing over 50 deals, including $70 billion in M&A activities and $30 billion in financings.
She has also served as a member of the board of directors of Olema Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, since April 2021. Ms. Larson earned a master’s degree in Business Administration concentrated in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She also earned a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Board Member
Aaron Royston, M.D., M.B.A. is a Managing Partner at venBio with a background in life science investing, healthcare strategy, and as an entrepreneur. Dr. Royston led venBio’s investments into Akero Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AKRO), Harmony Biosciences (Nasdaq: HRMY), Apellis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: APLS), and Menlo Therapeutics (Nasdaq: MNLO), and currently serves as a director on the boards of multiple private companies. Prior to joining venBio, Dr. Royston was a member of the investment team at Vivo Capital, a life science venture capital firm. Previously, he worked at Bain & Company, where he advised biotechnology companies on a range of strategic and operational issues. Earlier in his career, Dr. Royston coordinated clinical research at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where his research has been published and presented in multiple medical journals and conferences. Dr. Royston received his B.S. in biological sciences from Duke University, and his M.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
Borad Member
Ken is President and CEO at RayzeBio. Ken’s experience spans clinical medicine, basic science research, venture capital, and entrepreneurship. Prior to RayzeBio, he was President and CEO of Metacrine, Inc. where he led the organization from research to mid-stage clinical development of a best-in-class drug for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and also positioned the company for IPO. From 2010 to 2016, Ken was the co-founder and CEO of Ariosa Diagnostics (acquired by Roche) where he led the organization from early research to eventual global commercialization of the Harmony Prenatal Test in over 100 countries. Ken also serves as Executive Chairman of Omniome, a company developing a disruptive sequencing technology.
Prior to being an operator and entrepreneur, Ken worked as a venture capitalist at Venrock as well as consultant at McKinsey & Company. Ken trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and specialized in gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Washington along with a scientific research fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He earned his B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.D. from UCSF.
Board Member
Mike is a Partner at Samsara BioCapital, where he invests across all stages of the life science sector from seed stage to public equities. He currently serves on the board of a number of Samsara portfolio companies, including: Enara Bio, IONpath, Levo Therapeutics, Nkarta Therapeutics and Sutro (STRO).
Prior to Samsara, Mike was a Partner at New Leaf Venture Partners. Mike has served on the boards of Versartis (VSAR), Dimension Therapeutics (DMTX), Advanced Cell Diagnostics (acquired by Bio-Techne) and Principia. Before joining New Leaf, Mike was a Principal at the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a core member of their health care practice.
Mike received an A.B. in biochemical sciences from Harvard and a PhD in molecular biology from UC Berkeley, where he was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship. His research was published in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Science, and Neuron.
RayzeBio, Inc., a targeted radiopharmaceutical company developing an innovative pipeline against validated solid tumor targets, appointed Yi Larson to its board of directors effective April 1, 2021. Ms. Larson has a highly accomplished biotechnology career having been a Managing Director of Healthcare Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs where she worked for over 12 years, followed by Chief Financial Officer at Turning Point Therapeutics, and currently serving as Chief Financial Officer at LianBio.
“RayzeBio is clearly establishing itself as the leader in the exciting field of radiopharmaceuticals,” said Ms. Larson. “The company has impressively built an infrastructure to drive innovation in the sector. The company’s strategy and aggressive execution have attracted financial backing from a broad base of top tier healthcare investors.”
“In my first meeting with Yi, I was immediately impressed by her intelligence and knew that I had to find a way to work with her,” said Ken Song, M.D., President and CEO of RayzeBio. “In addition to her financial expertise in the life sciences sector, she has corporate and business development strategic insight and has such a great personality that you want to spend time with her.”
RayzeBio also announces the expansion of its team with the following key employee hires:
“I am thoroughly impressed by Derek, Kathie, and Dan as they each bring deep expertise and passion for what they do,” said Dr. Song. “Derek and Dan have been working with RayzeBio since earlier this year and have contributed to tangible progress in our discovery and development efforts. Kathie is someone I have worked with before and so already know of her talents and ability to lead and execute.”
About RayzeBio
RayzeBio is a biotechnology company focused on improving outcomes for people with cancer by harnessing the power of targeted radioisotopes. With a focus on clinically validated solid tumor targets, RayzeBio is developing novel drug conjugates to deliver potent therapeutic radioisotopes such as Actinium-225, an alpha-emitter. The company is backed by a syndicate of sophisticated healthcare investors and was established in 2020. For additional information, please visit www.rayzebio.com
Contact: info@rayzebio.com, (858) 257-3449
RayzeBio, Inc., which launched this year to develop a broad pipeline of targeted radiopharmaceuticals against validated solid tumor targets, today announced a $105 million Series B financing led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners (VHCP) alongside new investors OrbiMed, Redmile Group, Viking Global Investors, Logos Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, LifeSci Venture Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments and others. Also participating were existing in vestors from RayzeBio’s $45 million Series A financing, including venBio Partners, Versant Ventures and Samsara Bio Capital.
“In the past several months, we’ve built an exciting pipeline of seven programs, expanded our leadership team, and secured several key business partnerships,” said Ken Song, M.D., president and CEO of RayzeBio. “I am appreciative of the enthusiastic support from our elite group of investors. This additional capital allows us to fully invest in the potential of radiopharmaceuticals as a transformative therapy for cancer patients.”
With $150 million of capital from the two financings, RayzeBio will advance multiple programs in parallel toward the clinic. The company also is expanding its headquarters in San Diego with plans to further internalize key research and development capabilities.
“We’ve been following the radiopharmaceuticals space for several years and are impressed by the approach RayzeBio is taking to build a broad pipeline,” said Bong Koh, M.D., lead investor from VHCP who is joining the RayzeBio Board of Directors in connection with the Series B.
In addition to the financing, RayzeBio also announced the appointment of Gary Li, Ph.D. as senior vice president and head of biology and translational medicine and Eric Bischoff as senior vice president of development and operations. Dr. Li is an accomplished cancer cell biologist with over 15 years of drug development experience, with leadership positions at Ignyta and QED Therapeutics prior to joining RayzeBio. Mr. Bischoff has had an extensive and diverse career in drug discovery and development for more than 20 years including key roles at two oncology companies, Aragon and Seragon, which were both acquired.
About RayzeBio
RayzeBio is a biotechnology company focused on improving outcomes for people with cancer by harnessing the power of targeted radioisotopes. With a focus on clinically validated solid tumor targets, RayzeBio is developing novel peptide mimetic binders to deliver potent therapeutic radioisotopes such as Actinium-225, an alpha-emitter. The company is backed by a syndicate of sophisticated healthcare investors and was established in 2020. For additional information, please visit www.rayzebio.com
Contact:
Ken Song, M.D.
info@rayzebio.com
(858) 257-3449
— Robust pipeline of drugs against validated oncology targets –
— Focus on delivering Actinium-225, a powerful alpha-emitting radioisotope –
— Led by repeatedly successful management team –
RayzeBio, Inc. announced today a $45M Series A financing to advance the development of its broad pipeline of targeted radiopharmaceuticals. Co-lead investors venBio Partners and Versant Ventures were joined by Samsara BioCapital.
“The field of radiopharmaceuticals represents one of the most attractive untapped opportunities in oncology,” said Ken Song, M.D., President and CEO of RayzeBio. “We have a clear and systematic strategy to tackle this space, including key partnerships and a suite of rationally designed radiopharmaceutical medicines that can meaningfully impact outcomes for cancer patients.”
Emerging field of radiopharmaceuticals
Radiation treatment of cancer has been in practice for decades with external delivery of radiation beams as the primary mode of therapy. In contrast, radiopharmaceuticals, which involve the use of therapeutic radioisotopes administered systemically and targeted to tumors, are emerging as an important area in precision oncology.
“The radiopharmaceutical field is reaching a new inflection due to multiple scientific and translational advances as well as recent clinical demonstration of dramatic efficacy. We believe RayzeBio has the potential to generate similar results across multiple precision oncology targets, a feat that no other company has accomplished,” said Jerel Davis, Ph.D., Managing Director at Versant and a RayzeBio board member.
Radiopharmaceuticals enable a theranostic approach wherein the same drug conjugate is used for both diagnostic imaging and therapy by switching out the radioisotope. Doctors can directly visualize tumor uptake of the drug in patients prior to determining which patients should proceed with treatment. This provides a significant advantage for radiopharmaceuticals compared with other cancer treatment modalities.
RayzeBio’s differentiated approach
RayzeBio built its pipeline by coordinating across three main areas – target selection, binder selection and isotope selection.
“RayzeBio represents the most attractive opportunity in the radiopharmaceutical space given the breadth of its pipeline, its well thought-out plans to design best-in-class drugs, and the fact it is led by a highly driven, experienced and entrepreneurial team,” said Aaron Royston, M.D., Managing Partner at venBio.
Expanded team of RayzeBio
In addition to Dr. Song, the management team launching RayzeBio includes Deborah Charych, Ph.D., co-founder and CTO, and a pharma and biotech industry veteran to lead the biology group. The team has extensive industry experience, having contributed to the development and launch of multiple healthcare products as well as billions of dollars of value creation.
The board of directors includes Dr. Davis; Aaron Kantoff, a founding independent board member of RayzeBio and venture partner at Medicxi; Dr. Royston; and Dr. Song. Samsara’s Mike Dybbs, Ph.D., serves as a board observer.
The company has built relationships with the following clinical and scientific initial advisors and is continuing to expand its network as it makes progress on the various programs.
About RayzeBio
RayzeBio is a biotechnology company that aims to improve clinical benefit by efficiently developing innovative tumor-targeted small molecule medicines that harness the power of radioisotopes. With a focus on clinically validated solid tumor targets, RayzeBio is developing novel macrocyclic peptide mimetic binders to deliver potent therapeutic radioisotopes such as Actinium-225, an alpha-emitter. The company is backed by a syndicate of sophisticated healthcare investors and was established in 2020 by co-founders Deborah Charych, Aaron Kantoff, and Aron Knickerbocker. For additional information, please visit www.rayzebio.com
Contact:
Ken Song, M.D.
info@rayzebio.com
(858) 257-3449
PeptiDream Inc., a public Kanagawa-based biopharmaceutical company (“PeptiDream”)(Tokyo:4587) today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with San Diego, California, US – based RayzeBio Inc., (“RayzeBio”) for the discovery and development of peptide-radioisotope (RI) conjugates for use as therapeutics (“Peptide Radiotherapeutics”).
Under the agreement, the two companies will work on a number of programs against targets mutually agreed to, with PeptiDream providing peptide candidates, identified and optimized using its proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) technology, to RayzeBio for further development as radiotherapeutics, with RayzeBio holding exclusive worldwide development and commercialization rights to the program peptides for use with radioisotopes. PeptiDream will lead preclinical discovery and optimization efforts, with RayzeBio leading translational biology efforts to further characterize peptide-RI conjugates and advance such conjugates into clinical development and commercialization activities.
Under the terms of the agreement, PeptiDream will receive an equity interest in RayzeBio, as well as be eligible for certain payments associated with product development and commercial success, as well as royalties on future sales of any products that arise from the partnership.
This strategic partnership with RayzeBio, in addition to existing partnerships with Nihon Medi Physics (2018) and Novartis (2019), solidifies PeptiDream’s position as a leader in the Peptide Radiotherapeutics field.
“We are truly excited to announce this new strategic partnership with RayzeBio for the discovery and development of novel and innovative Peptide Radiotherapeutics. With RayzeBio leading translational biology, development and commercialization and PeptiDream focused on the preclinical discovery and optimization, we think this partnership with RayzeBio can further enable (or accelerate) PeptiDream’s goal of bringing several first-in-class and best-in-class radiotherapeutics to patients worldwide.” said Patrick C. Reid PhD, President & CEO of PeptiDream.
About PeptiDream
PeptiDream Inc. is a public (Tokyo Stock Exchange 1st Section 4587) biopharmaceutical company founded in 2006 employing our proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS), a state-of-the-art highly versatile discovery platform which enables the production of highly diverse (trillions) non-standard peptide libraries with high efficiency, for the identification of highly potent and selective hit candidates, which then can be developed into peptide-based or small molecule-based therapeutics. PeptiDream aspires to be a world leader in drug discovery and development to address unmet medical needs and improve the quality of life of patients worldwide. For further information, please visit www.peptidream.com.
Enquiries:
PeptiDream Inc.
Mie Yamazaki IR & Public Affairs – (Kanagawa)
EMAIL: m-yamazaki@peptidream.com