EpiBiologics has some fresh funding and a new CEO who spent nearly two decades at biotech giant Genentech, as well as a couple of years at a high-profile Bay Area startup that's trying to improve human longevity.
The San Mateo company announced on Thursday that it hired Ann Lee-Karlon as its new chief executive effective July 5. She is taking over from co-founder Rami Hannoush, who will step into an advisory role.
Lee-Karlon left another Bay Area biotech company, Altos Labs, in June, according to her LinkedIn.
Altos Labs is attempting to increase human longevity, and Lee-Karlon joined the startup as its chief operating officer when it was founded in 2021. During her time there, the company raised more than $3 billion in venture funding, including the Bay Area's largest round of 2022. It also counted Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner among its investors.
Prior to Altos Labs, Lee-Karlon spent more than 18 years at Roche subsidiary Genentech where she became a senior vice president in 2013 until leaving to join Altos Labs.
"Thrilled to join EpiBiologics as CEO. EpiBiologics is advancing new antibody-based protein degrader therapeutics for membrane and extracellular targets," Lee-Karlon wrote in a post on LinkedIn. "I’m excited to work with our outstanding scientific team, advisors, and leaders to serve patients across many areas, including cancer, immunology, and neurological diseases."
Before launching EpiBiologics, Hannoush also spent several years at Genentech where he held various roles including scientific advisor and senior principal scientist.
EpiBiologics also said it raised an additional $23 million, bringing its total funding to $73 million. The new round came from existing investor Codon Capital and new investors Digitalis Ventures and Taiho Ventures.
The new funding comes just a few months after the company announced a $50 million Series A round that was led by Mubadala Capital (the venture capital arm of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Co.) and Polaris Partners. Its other investors include GV, Mission BioCapital and Vivo Capital.
EpiBiologics is developing protein-based therapeutics for treating diseases based on research from UCSF professor Jim Wells, and the company licenses that technology from the university.
Most protein-based therapeutic research is focused on attacking diseases from within cells, but EpiBiologics's approach is to target the surfaces of cells.
