Blackhawk, Calif.,
March 17, 2026 – Vesicor Therapeutics, Inc., a San Gabriel, California-based
early development stage biotechnology corporation focused on the development of
p53-based cancer therapeutics delivered via precision-engineered microvesicles
and a proposed de-SPAC acquisition target for Black Hawk Acquisition
Corporation (Nasdaq: BKHA, BKHAU, BKHAR) today announced that its Board of Directors
has appointed Michael Tolentino, M.D., an accomplished biotech leader with deep
industry experience, as Chief Executive Officer, effective March 17. He
succeeds Founder and CEO Luo Feng, Ph.D., who has been appointed Chief
Scientific Officer
“Dr. Tolentino is
an exceptional leader whose biotech industry expertise, deep relationships
across the CRO and pharma ecosystems, and proven track record of creating
shareholder value is exactly what Vesicor needs in its next CEO,” stated Warren
Hosseinion, M.D., Chairman of the Board of Vesicor Therapeutics. “We are
honored to have Dr. Tolentino as our new CEO as we work to complete our de-SPAC
with Blackhawk Acquisition Corporation and accelerate our IND-enabling studies
and IND-submission to the FDA.”
“I am delighted to
join Vesicor as CEO. I have tremendous respect and admiration for the company,
its science and its Founder and am eager to build upon the technology and work
the team has been doing to position itself for an IND submission in 2027. I
see significant opportunities to develop potent therapeutics against cancer and
create value for our shareholders,” stated Michael Tolentino, M.D.
Dr. Tolentino is a
serial entrepreneur and longtime biotechnology leader and widely respected
executive with more than 20 years of experience and deep relationships across the
drug discovery, pre-clinical development, clinical development, and pharmaceutical
industry. In the laboratory of Dr. Judah Folkman, he discovered the importance
of the VEGF pathway in retinal disease and cancer. While at Harvard, he helped
invent and pre-clinically develop Avastin with Genentech, the drug that launched
both the retinal and oncologic anti-VEGF industry. He subsequently invented and
was the pre-clinical and clinical developer of Bevasiranib, the first RNA
interference and siRNA drug taken to clinic for diabetic retinopathy and macular
degeneration. He was the Founder and served as CEO, CSO and CMO of Acuity
Pharmaceuticals, which merged to form OPKO Health (NASDAQ: OPK) in 2007.
In 2008, he was
the scientific founder and consultant for Promedior, Inc., a privately held
biotech company that advanced the anti-fibrotic PRM-151 for idiopathic
pulmonary fibrosis and myelofibrosis. Promedior was sold to Roche in 2018 for
$390 million in cash and contingent payments up to $1 billion.
He Co-founded and
was a Board member of Panther Pharmaceuticals from 2018-2023. Concurrently, he
was the Co-founding physician and partner of Vision Integrated Partners, a
PE-funded ophthalmic roll-up where he founded, directed and incorporated a
clinical trial site management organization called Blue Ocean Clinical Research
that ran clinical trials with Dr. Tolentino as the principal investigator.
Dr. Tolentino Co-founded
Aviceda Therapeutics, invented AVD-104 and served as CSO from 2018-2021 and CTO/CIO
from 2018 until 2025, when Aviceda secured $207.5 million Series C financing.
He also served on the board of the company from 2018-2024 and helped design and
manage the Phase 2-3 clinical trial.
Dr. Tolentino is
the Co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Avdarna Therapeutics since 2021. Avdarna is
a pre-clinical to clinical developer of novel AI-generated proprietary
protein/peptide therapeutics that mimic and enhance the efficacy of current
blockbuster drugs like GLP-1, GIP-1, glucagon agonists, checkpoint inhibitors,
targeted nucleotide therapeutic gene delivery, cancer-targeted antibodies,
nanobodies and ADCs. Avdarna is the pre-clinical to clinical developer for
assets generated by Aikium.
He is also the
Co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Aikium, Inc. Aikium is
revolutionizing therapeutics discovery and development with Yotta-ML², the
world’s first proprietary 10^24 protein/peptide sequence structured data-set trained,
drug discovery AI platform. The Yotta platform is taught to identify therapeutic
agonists or antagonists that bind clinically validated targets such as GLP-1,
GIP-1, Glucagon, and checkpoint receptors, as well as previously undruggable
targets such as GPCRs, cancer associated antigens, and intracellular proteins. Aikium
with Avdarna is rapidly developing novel therapeutics replacing drugs going off
patent with more efficacious, longer acting, less toxic, multi-specific and
oral drugs. Aikium has also identified protein binders to be developed for
novel targets leading to the next-generation peptide/protein therapeutics,
antibody drug conjugates, gene therapies and beyond. Cancer antigen targeted
peptides discovered by Aikium can be conjugated to microvesicles and be used to
specifically target cancer cells for p53 gene delivery and other cancer killing
agents such as topoisomerase inhibitors, alkylating agents and microtubule
inhibitors.
Dr. Tolentino
holds a BA in both Computer Science and Organizational Behavior and Management
from Brown University, a M.D. from the University of Massachusetts Chan School
of Medicine, completed his Research Fellowships and Residency in Ophthalmology
from Harvard Medical School and a Retinal Surgical Clinical Fellowship from the
University of Pennsylvania. He served on the Faculty of Cellular, Molecular
Biology and Gene Therapy, was a Scientist at the FM Kirby Center for Molecular
Ophthalmology, and Clinical Faculty at the Scheie Eye Institute, all
organizations at the University of Pennsylvania.
