Eye­ing an IPO, Sutro re­tools its $1B I/O deal with Cel­gene but stays fo­cused on BC­MA

In the three years that Sutro and Cel­gene have been work­ing un­der the um­brel­la of a bil­lion-dol­lar deal, Sutro CEO Bill Newell ex­pects his re­search crew has ex­plored 15 dif­fer­ent tar­gets, in­clud­ing the im­muno-on­col­o­gy stand-outs PD-1 and PD-L1. And the biotech has grown with Cel­gene’s help, mov­ing from about 90 staffers to 130 as the biotech pushed its own lead pro­grams to­ward the clin­ic.

Now, they’re re­tool­ing their pact. Cel­gene is adding an op­tion to ac­quire world­wide rights on a sec­ond pro­gram, one of four that the South San Fran­cis­co-based biotech will spot­light in the re­vised col­lab­o­ra­tion. On­ly one of those – an an­ti­body drug con­ju­gate tar­get­ing B-Cell mat­u­ra­tion anti­gen (BC­MA) – is in pub­lic view as the part­ners stay un­der cov­er on the rest.

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