Ex-Turn­ing Point ex­ecs plan to have their next bet, Aven­zo, on the Nas­daq next sum­mer

The crew at Turn­ing Point Ther­a­peu­tics is back to­geth­er for a new biotech that wants to ac­quire ear­ly-stage on­col­o­gy small mol­e­cules, in­clud­ing an­ti­body drug con­ju­gates, and po­ten­tial­ly form part­ner­ships with Chi­na-based drug de­vel­op­ers for ex-Chi­na rights as it eyes a speedy leap on­to the Nas­daq around this time next year, CEO Athena Coun­tou­ri­o­tis told End­points News.

Af­ter sell­ing Turn­ing Point to Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, an­nounced at the on­set of last year’s AS­CO con­fab, she and col­league Mo­ham­mad Hir­mand found­ed Aven­zo Ther­a­peu­tics. The CEO and CMO al­ready have ap­prox­i­mate­ly $200 mil­lion in seed and Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing from five big-name in­vestors to eval­u­ate which drugs to bring in­to its pipeline. That in­cludes SR One, Or­biMed, Fore­site Cap­i­tal, Citadel’s Sur­vey­or Cap­i­tal and Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures. Bid­ding wars for as­sets have led Aven­zo to miss out on some deals in re­cent months, but the biotech has three ac­tive term sheets and hopes to bring in its first as­set in the third quar­ter, Coun­tou­ri­o­tis said in a Fri­day morn­ing in­ter­view.

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