Talking Biotech with Dr. Kevin Folta Conditionally Active Therapeutics - Dr. Neela Patel, Dr. Diane Hollenbaugh
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Feb 27, 2026 Dr. Neela Patel, CBO at Bonum Therapeutics who leads strategy and partnerships. Dr. Diane Hollenbaugh, CSO at Bonum focused on cytokine biology and therapeutic design. They explore conditionally active biologics, reversible on/off antibody systems, mechanisms to avoid systemic toxicity, tumor microenvironment challenges, and Bonum’s stroma-targeted interferon alpha program and commercial strategy.
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Systemic Distribution Creates Toxicity Limits
- Drugs go everywhere in the body so systemic activity causes toxicity and limits dose.
- Diane Hollenbaugh used ibuprofen and chemotherapy analogies to show the need to keep potent biologics active only at disease sites.
IL-2 Shows High Efficacy and High Toxicity
- IL-2 can cure a small subset of patients but causes severe systemic toxicities including ICU stays and deaths.
- Diane Hollenbaugh cited IL-2 as a canonical example of a cytokine with high efficacy but unacceptable systemic side effects.
Protease Masks Enable Local Activation
- Conditional biologics use masking strategies so molecules remain inactive until they reach tumors.
- Diane described protease-cleavable masks that block activity systemically and are removed by tumor proteases to enable local activation.