Bluejay: Combining HBV Therapies To Reach a Functional Cure

Posted on August 12, 2021

Bluejay is applying a combination of therapies in-licensed from Novartis with an aim to cure chronic HBV by reducing viral surface antigen in both the liver and blood.

Founder, Chairman and CEO Keting Chu said she had been interested in building a company around HBV assets from Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) after the pharma exited infectious disease in 2018. A Novartis alum herself, Chu met Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research’s Jennifer Leeds at a California Life Sciences Institute meeting a few years ago; the connection set the stage for an in-licensing deal. Leeds is executive director and head of BD&L search and evaluation, West Coast and Canada.

Chu said she believed in the assets, knowing that NIBR’s Donald Ganem was involved in their discovery and early development. Ganem, who was VP and head of global infectious diseases research at NIBR in 2011-18, is a professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology at University of California San Francisco, where Chu attended graduate school.

Chu launched Bluejay Therapeutics Inc. in 2019 with exclusive global rights to three of the pharma’s therapies: BJT-778, a mAb against HBV surface antigen (HBsAg); BJT-574, a small molecule HBsAg inhibitor; and a small molecule capsid inhibitor.

Most recently a Lyfe Capital partner, Chu has led multiple start-ups in addition to holding research and executive roles at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Five Prime Therapeutics Inc., Chiron Corp. and Novartis.

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Keting Chu

Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board

Dr. Keting Chu is an experienced biotech executive, entrepreneur and life science venture investor with a broad range of experiences in therapeutic development in both large and small biotechnology companies and venture investments.

Prior to founding Bluejay, Keting was a Partner and a Venture partner at LYFE Capital. Working with the team in Lyfe capital, Keting helped to close $550M Lyfe Capital Fund III and invested in Ansun Biopharm, Pliant Therapeutics and Tempest Therapeutics. Pliant and Tempest went IPO in NASDAQ successfully in 2020 and 2021. Keting was previously a venture partner in Apple Tree Partners briefly. Before joining Apple Tree Partners, Keting spent five years as VP, Research TAP at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). There she was responsible for venture philanthropy, also known as the Therapy Acceleration program. At LLS, Keting led the investment into Celator, Stemline, Constellation, Affimed, ArgenX, Kite Pharma, Kiadis, OncoPep, Valor and a number of projects in academic institutions with the focus on proof-of-concept (POC) studies in patients. Three of the nine companies received “Breakthrough” designation by the FDA in 2016 after positive proof-of-concept studies. Celator was acquired by Jazz Pharma for $1.5B, Kite by Gilead for $12B and Stemline by Menarini for $677M. Three NDAs, by Celator, Kite and Stemline, were approved by the US FDA successfully. Prior to LLS, Keting was the CEO of Mission Therapeutics and the Co-Founder, President and CEO of DigitAB, Inc. and BioCubed Corporation. For her first startup company, Five Prime Therapeutics, Keting was Vice President of Biology and Head of R&D where she built the R&D strategy and team, established the technology platform and generated a product pipeline. Prior to Five Prime, Keting was the Head of Immunotherapy and Antibody Therapeutics Division at Chiron Corporation, where she engaged in preclinical and clinical developments of protein, DNA-based, and small molecule therapeutics for cancer and inflammatory diseases. Three cancer therapeutic antibodies that keting led the team from discovery to phase I clinical trials are in phase II and III testing now.

Keting received her MD in Sun Yat-Sen Medical University where she specialized in infectious diseases in China, and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). She also conducted her postdoctoral training at Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF.