Jeffrey Bluestone brings his startup haul to $400M+, joining forces with Regeneron on cell therapies

These days, when Jeffrey Bluestone gets together with his contemporaries in science, the conversation often turns to retirement plans.

Bioregnum Opinion Column by John Carroll

But a little more than three years ago, Bluestone reached a momentous turning point in his career, exiting a prestigious post at UCSF, where he had spent decades in the scientific pursuit of new therapies. And it had nothing to do with retirement anytime in the near future.

Bluestone decided to found a biotech on the work he had devoted much of his life to, and this time he also took the helm as CEO of Sonoma Biotherapeutics.

Since then, he’s built a team at Sonoma that now includes about 130 staffers endeavoring to spark a revolution in drug R&D with new cell therapies that he believes can essentially cure inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. And this morning, he’s adding a $75 million raise in cash from a new partnership he’s formed with Regeneron, one of the leading proven players in basic drug science.

The latest deal brings his total support to more than $400 million — not a bad score for a longtime academic who had never before run a biotech company.

That cash from Regeneron includes $30 million for an equity stake in the company and comes with an extra $45 million development milestone built in.

Now nearing his 70th birthday, Bluestone shows no signs of flagging in his role.

George Yancopoulos

It helps that he was building on an existing relationship with George Yancopoulos, the outspoken science lead at Regeneron, who has created an empire around two huge franchises: Eylea and Dupixent.

“I’ve known George for a long time,” Bluestone tells me in a preview of today’s news, “and the first time we talked, it was very clear that we were both coming from the same place. Science drives decisions, and decisions drive drug development … He’s always felt this sense that we’re going to be involved in new medicines; cell therapy’s a new medicine. Because of my relationship with him, he thought this is the company he’d want to do it with.”

For Sonoma’s part, they’re getting Regeneron’s expertise in building antibodies: “It’s just the perfect thing for us as we identify targets to be able to rapidly make CARs and make cells that’ll recognize novel antigens.”

“(Regeneron CEO) Len (Schleifer) always talks about the fact that he is the inventor of the 50-50,” says Bluestone. “What I wanted to make sure is that we are really going to be able to build a company, that this is not a segue to getting bought out or getting acquired or something. This is basically a partnership, which means 50-50 all the way along, both in costs and ideas and steering committee, and then ultimately in commercialization.”

Len Schleifer

Sonoma and Bluestone have been doing a lot more than just recruiting new staff since the launch. Last summer, the Bay Area biotech inked a lease on an 83,000-square-foot manufacturing and R&D center in Seattle, setting its sights on making its own cell therapies — once a trademark of the cell therapy crowd, before the market hit the skids and money grew more scarce.

Bluestone has managed to expand his syndicate, forge his key research alliance and go the manufacturing way without an IPO. And it leaves him free to think about what the market may look like in a couple of years, when both the biotech and Wall Street may be open to a new offering.

That means gathering the first clinical data from their human studies for display, the only gold standard left in proving concepts to generalist investors.

Regeneron execs — not known for seeking incremental gains — are also clearly not thinking small. Says Bluestone:

We started this company based on the fact that at the end of the day, and it’s been my career, that we need to come up with ways of inducing immune tolerance long-term in the absence of continued drug treatment (what you might commonly refer to as a cure, or at least curative). That’s durable, long-term, balanced immunity. I think that Regeneron feels the same way. The drugs that they developed are big stepping stones towards that.

And this potentially takes them one big step further — provided they can make it work in humans.

manufacturing
antibodies
cell therapy
biotech