Halda Therapeutics exec named BioCT’s top entrepreneur for 2024

Contributed Kat Kayser-Bricker, Ph.D.

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Kat Kayser-Bricker, the chief scientific officer for New Haven biotech Halda Therapeutics, was honored Thursday as the Entrepreneur of the Year in the bioscience industry.

First presented in 2013, the award is given annually by New Haven-based BioCT, the state’s bioscience booster organization, and the law firm Shipman & Goodwin LLP, which has an office in New Haven.

The 2024 award was presented to Kayser-Bricker during BioCT’s annual holiday networking event Thursday evening. It is intended to honor outstanding innovators who are “imaginative, passionate and game-changers in Connecticut life sciences.”

Halda Therapeutics, located in the New Haven’s Winchester Works building, is developing a novel class of cancer therapies called RIPTAC (Regulated Induced Proximity Targeting Chimeras) therapeutics. RIPTAC therapeutics are small molecules that selectively target cancer cells and “kill” them.

In August, the company said it had raised $126 million in new financing in a Series B extension. Including that financing round, Halda has raised $202 million to date from investors.

In addition, the biotech’s lead RIPTAC therapeutic, HLD-0915, is on track to start a Phase 1 clinical trial in the first half of 2025 to treat patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

Jodie Gillon, BioCT’s president & CEO, said she is thrilled the award committee selected Kayser-Bricker.

“Having witnessed Kat’s contributions at Halda and through her service to underrepresented groups breaking into life sciences, I was compelled to ask her to join BioCT’s board last fall,” Gillon said.

Kayser-Bricker said that, as a female leader in a science field, she works to support other women in science. To that end, she became involved when a Women in Bio chapter was created in Connecticut in 2021.

“I started as co-chair of the Young Women In Bio group for Connecticut,” she said, “which focuses on middle school- and high school-aged girls and promoting their learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), creating opportunities for them to understand what it means to have a career in STEM.”

She went on to co-chair the Executive Women in Bio section, which offers a network and pathways for growth for women at the C-suite level. “That’s been tremendously rewarding,” she said.

Before joining Halda Therapeutics as an original team member, Kayser-Bricker spent 10 years as a scientific leader at FORMA Therapeutics, a public company that was acquired in 2022 by Novo Nordisk for $1.1 billion.

At FORMA, she held several roles, including head of early discovery chemistry. She was also responsible for maintaining several collaborative external alliances with academic and pharmaceutical partners for portfolio and technology advancements.

She received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Maryland in College Park, and her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University.

Since 2013, BioCT has honored 16 people, including last year’s winner Dr. Stephen Bloch, CEO of EvolveImmune Therapeutics, which is also developing cancer therapies.