Vertex Ventures has named George Golumbeski and Faheem Hasnain as executive advisers. The appointments position the VC fund to benefit from the input of industry veterans who, respectively, turned Celgene into one of the most active deal-makers in biotech and ran companies including Receptos.
Two longtime biotech veterans are joining a multibillion dollar VC firm in order to help steer its latest fund.
George Golumbeski and Faheem Hasnain have signed on to Vertex Ventures HC as executive advisors, the company announced Thursday, and will assist with their depth of experience in managing $320 million of capital.
Vertex Ventures HC has raised $320M in long term committed capital for investment in transformative early stage life science companies.
Managing Directors Carolyn Ng and Lori Hu represent a new generation of female-led investment funds in the healthcare industry.
Palleon Pharmaceuticals announced the completion of a $100 million Series B round to develop its pipeline of glyco-immunology therapies. Its lead program in oncology, an enzymatic sialoglycan degrader, is expected to hit the clinic next year.
The Series B led by Matrix Capital Management will help push that pipeline toward the clinic. Returning investors include Vertex Ventures HC, SR One, Pfizer Ventures, Takeda Ventures, and AbbVie Ventures with new investor Surveyor Capital chipping in.
Bristol Myers Squibb has exercised its option to globally license Obsidian Therapeutics' CD40L-armed cell therapy. The deal gives Bristol Myers control of a drug designed to counter the antigen-negative tumor escape that restricts the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapies.
Celgene secured an option on cell therapies featuring technology to control the activity of CD40L and IL-12 in the run-up to its $74 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers. Having gained the option through the takeover, Bristol Myers has decided to opt in and claim its exclusive worldwide license on the CD40L program.
AlloVir has raised $276 million in an upsized IPO to fund development of allogeneic T-cell treatments for viral diseases. The money will equip AlloVir to embark on a broad clinical development program for a phase 3-ready cell therapy that targets five viruses.
Massachusetts-based AlloVir generates off-the-shelf virus-specific T cells in donors before stimulating their peripheral blood mononuclear cells to selectively activate and expand the therapeutic cells. By giving patients T cells that partially match their HLA subtype, AlloVir thinks it can kill virus infected cells without harming healthy cells or causing graft-versus-host disease.