Treg pioneer Bluestone joins Vie Ventures as it builds autoimmune portfolio

Vie Ventures is marrying its co-founders’ experience at MPM and disease-specific non-profits with the know-how of patient foundations and the capital of high-net-worth individuals to advance therapies for immunology and autoimmune indications. Now, Vie’s Steven St. Peter and Luke Evnin have recruited immunologist and biotech executive Jeff Bluestone as they build the year-old venture firm’s portfolio.

Bluestone, the founding director of the Immune Tolerance Network and founding CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, most recently co-founded and led Sonoma Biotherapeutics Inc., a West Coast biotech focused on engineered regulatory T cell therapies. The Treg pioneer created Tzield teplizumab, the first therapy approved to delay the onset of Type I diabetes, and his work laid the foundation for multiple other immunotherapies, including the first FDA-approved drug targeting T cell co-stimulation to treat autoimmune disease...