After leading his previous company through a back-to-back IPO and M&A deal, the former chief executive of RayzeBio has raised $370 million to develop autoimmune therapies he believes could be “mega-blockbusters.”
Those drugs are being developed by San Diego startup Candid Therapeutics, which launched Monday with financing from more than 20 investors. Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Fairmount, TCGX, and venBio Partners all co-led the financing.
Candid was created by Ken Song earlier this year, after his last company, RayzeBio, was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb for $4.1 billion. RayzeBio, started four years earlier, had gone public only a few months before the pharma giant swept in and acquired its pipeline of radiopharmaceutical candidates. It was the third company Song, 49, had led through an acquisition. Many people in his life assumed he would step away from the C-suite and retire or become a serial board member, but he found he wasn’t ready for that step.
