RayzeBio: A Christmas to remember

Song served at RayzeBio from company launch in 2020 through to its $350+ million IPO in September 2023, and then the closed acquisition by BMS in February this year. He told the audience about how there “was a lot of skepticism, or I would say lack of appreciation for this modality. But I think we really, truly, believed that this was going to be a major modality and have a big impact on cancer.”

Like McKenna, Song’s to-do list did not include selling his company. Instead, he said “we did interact with pharma, mainly to educate because I think our view was that this modality overall just needs to be better recognized.”

Consequently, the ability to “just talk with anybody, whether it be investigators, other companies in the space, [or] pharma, we felt was always a useful thing.” The useful conversations soon turned into “ongoing discussions.”

He commented on how “most things start with a partnership,” of which RayzeBio did have some discussions regarding potential collaborations. However, Song said he thinks partnerships “are super tricky,” and he went as far as saying, “theoretically on paper they sound great, [but] I think it should be your absolute last resort.”

He argued partnerships “always start out with the right intentions, but ultimately, they end up becoming a huge distraction, and I think [this] hurts the business.”

Rip the band-aid off

Song clearly had his opinion on partnerships and the complexities they can bring. Thus, RayzeBio “gravitated towards shaping the conversations […], [had] these ongoing discussions and ultimately culminated […] two different bids that came in just by coincidence” the week before Christmas.

He told the audience this “kicked off a one-week process” where the firm engaged with three parties “and a very intensive due diligence process.”

Song and his team went through the process and made sure to “get it done and [get] a lot of things executed.” On Christmas Eve, RayzeBio received a call from its inquirer “saying that he just wanted to get the deal done” and that it needs to be done “basically within less than 24 hours.”

Flight diverted

Song spoke about how he was at the airport with his family ready to fly to Denver, Colorado to see his sister for Christmas. “I am not going to be flying that flight,” he told the agent. Instead, he went to the office, called his team, and “worked through the night” so the deal could be signed on Christmas day.

The panel moderator, Carin Canale-Theakston, executive biotech advisor at Inizio, asked “What did you do to make it up to the family?” Song replied: “it was not that much time lost. It was just odd to be so intensive on Christmas day. [But] between Christmas and New Year’s it went from running 1,000 miles per hour” to settling down.

While the deal with BMS moved quickly, Song discussed the “telltale signs” that would disengage him from pursuing a deal. “If you find you are the one reaching out more than them reaching out to you” then that shows the other party might not really want to do it. Additionally, “the other very clear telltale sign is you might be talking to a senior vice president that is your primary contact, [and] then they stay you should take to my other colleagues, just someone that reports to them. That is another telltale sign it is falling apart.”

He added: “I think a lot of times people want to still believe that they are in the game. But it is like when you are in a bad relationship, you do not see it. And then once you're out of it, then in hindsight [you think] oh, yeah, was so obvious.”

He directed listeners to have an advisor or other people to provide you with that perspective “because a lot of the time when you are in the thick of it, you would like to continue to believe that things are still going a certain way [and] you then fail to see the objective side.”