CEO J. Jean Cui’s track record has investors flocking to BlossomHill Therapeutics, after her last company—Turning Point Therapeutics—was sold to Bristol Myers Squibb in a $4.1 billion deal.
Pictured: Blue-colored visualization of molecular design/iStock, Vichly44
After a few quiet years, BlossomHill Therapeutics is ready to hit the clinic with $100 million Series B financing in hand for small molecule cancer drugs. Thursday’s announcement included new and existing investors who are banking on the track record of the biotech’s co-founder and CEO J. Jean Cui.
The Series B funding brings the total capital raised for the biotech to $173 million, just in time for what Cui called a “pivotal year” for the company. BlossomHill’s first two oncology programs will be advancing into clinical trials as others move into IND-enabling studies. The biotech’s portfolio is focused on oncology and autoimmune programs.
Cui, the lead inventor of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor drug for lung cancer, launched BlossomHill during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with her co-founder from a previous company—Turning Point Therapeutics. After Cui left Turning Point, the company was picked up by Bristol Myers Squibb in a $4.1 billion deal in June 2022. The following year, Augtyro was approved for lung cancer with ROS1 fusions.
A former Pfizer chemist, Cui designs new molecular mechanisms from scratch to address on- and off-target resistance mechanisms. In addition to Augtyro, Cui was also responsible for the design of FDA-approved drugs Xalkori and Lobrena, both for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
It’s Cui’s track record that has investors flocking to BlossomHill. In addition to being a strong chemist, Carl Gordon of OrbiMed, a previous investor in Turning Point and now invested in BlossomHill, credits her in a STAT News interview with the ability to predict what molecules will be needed. Sundeep Agrawal from Colt Ventures also referenced Cui’s previous successes in a statement.
Bihua Chen of Cormorant Asset outright said the investment is not so much about the business strategy, but rather “it’s all about her.”
One of Cui’s targets will be to bring a market competitor to AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso, a top-selling cancer pill for NSCLC. The AstraZeneca drug is raked in nearly $5.8 billion for the company in 2023. Another asset for acute myeloid leukemia will also go through IND submission this year with a third oncology program slated to enter next year, according to EndPoints News. The company’s autoimmune projects are so far undisclosed.
Kate Goodwin is a freelance life science writer based in Des Moines, Iowa. She can be reached at kate.goodwin@biospace.com and on LinkedIn.
