Jeffrey Bluestone, Sonoma co-founder and CEO (Tessa Therapeutics via YouTube)

Jef­frey Blue­stone re­cruits a trio of bio­phar­ma vets to the start­up team at Sono­ma — while adding $30M to the launch round

Jef­frey Blue­stone’s start­up in the Bay Area just added a pack­et of ven­ture mon­ey to its cash re­serves. But more im­por­tant­ly, the ex-chief of the Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py re­cruit­ed sev­er­al more ex­pe­ri­enced vets to the ex­ec­u­tive team that will dri­ve new drugs to con­quer au­toim­mune dis­eases like di­a­betes.

On the mon­ey side, Sono­ma Ther­a­peu­tics to­day an­nounced that its syn­di­cate came up with an ex­tra $30 mil­lion for the launch round, bring­ing the to­tal to $70 mil­lion. The cash came from a broad group of in­vestors, led by Rick Klaus­ner’s Lyell and ARCH. Here’s the rest of the crew: 8VC, Life­Force Cap­i­tal, Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures Bio­sciences, Oc­ta­gon Cap­i­tal, Alexan­dria Ven­ture In­vest­ments, the JDRF T1D Fund and ad­di­tion­al undis­closed in­vestors.

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