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Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Bolt Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage cancer drug developer building therapies that combine antibodies with immune-boosting payloads to attack tumors.
Bolt Biotherapeutics is a small, clinical-stage biotech trying to make cancer immunotherapy work better. Its core idea is a class of drugs it calls Boltbodies: an antibody that latches onto a protein found on or around a tumor, chemically linked to an immune stimulant. The antibody acts as a delivery truck, and the payload is meant to wake up the patient's immune system right at the tumor site, so immune cells learn to recognize and attack the cancer. It is an elegant concept, but it is still unproven in patients.
The company, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, has no approved products and no product revenue. It survives on cash from investors, partnerships, and the public markets, and it burns that cash on laboratory work and clinical trials. Like most early-stage drug developers, its value rests almost entirely on whether its pipeline candidates succeed in trials. In late 2025 the company announced a strategic shift, deprioritizing its lead Boltbody candidate and cutting staff to conserve cash, a common and sobering move when early data or funding realities force a rethink. That kind of pivot tells you how fragile the business is: science is slow, expensive, and mostly fails. The obvious comparison is MacroGenics, another antibody-focused immuno-oncology company, and the broader field is crowded with better-funded players. Big pharma companies with deep pockets — Merck, Roche, Bristol Myers Squibb — dominate cancer immunotherapy, and Bolt's hope is that its approach is differentiated enough to matter, either as a standalone drug or as something a larger partner wants to license. Partnerships are the classic biotech lifeline: a big company pays upfront cash and promises future milestone payments in exchange for rights to a promising molecule.
Because Bolt has no sales, free cash flow is deeply negative, and management's main job is managing the runway — stretching the cash balance long enough to reach the next data readout or deal. Investors should treat it as a high-risk, binary bet on science rather than a business with predictable earnings, and the honest summary is that it is a research bet financed by hope and capital markets, not a company making money today.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Bolt's shares outstanding are just 1.9 million, making it a micro-cap with a market value near $13 million
- 1.9% Shares outstanding
- 98.1% Not applicable
Bolt Biotherapeutics has only 1.9 million shares outstanding and a market cap of about $13 million, according to Investor's Business Daily. The tiny share count reflects a 2025 reverse stock split. With a stock trading between $3.10 and $7.78 over the past year, the company's entire market value is smaller than the cash it once held. Source: Investor's Business Daily, data from 2026
Timeline
A Stanford Doctor Starts Bolt
Cancer is sneaky. One of its tricks is turning the body's own immune cells against the fight, and Dr. Edgar G. Engleman at Stanford spent years studying exactly that corner of biology, especially cells called myeloid cells. In early 2015 he founded a company to turn that research into actual medicines, a field known as immuno-oncology, where the goal is to teach the immune system to attack tumors. The company was incorporated in Delaware as Bolt Therapeutics, Inc., with myeloid biology as its whole reason to exist.
Bolt Therapeutics Becomes Bolt Biotherapeutics
A few months in, the company tweaked its name to Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc., a small change that made the mission clearer right on the label: biotherapeutics, drugs built from biology.
Bolt Raises $242 Million in Its IPO
By 2021 the company was ready for the public markets, selling about 13 million shares at $20 each and raising roughly $242 million, money meant to push its main idea, called Boltbody ISAC, through development. That is a big pile of cash for a young drug company, and it bought years of runway. It also came with a quiet tax wrinkle: raising so much money from so many new owners since inception could trigger an ownership change under Section 382, a rule that limits how much old tax losses a company can use later.
BDC-1001 Fails and Bolt Cuts Deep
The lead drug, BDC-1001, did not clear the bar the company had set for success, and Bolt stopped developing it. The fallout was brutal and fast: the CEO and the chief medical officer were moved into advisory roles, the workforce was cut by about half, and the stock fell 37 percent in a day to close at 83 cents as analysts downgraded the company. The bet that the IPO had funded had just come up empty.
A Second Cut and a Going-Concern Warning
A year later came another halving of the staff, and the company's 2025 accounts carried a going-concern warning, accounting language that basically means there is real doubt it can keep paying its bills. By mid-2026 Bolt was a one-program company, with about $18 million in cash to last into 2027 and a single active drug, BDC-4182, in early human testing. A company that had raised hundreds of millions was now down to one ticket.
Bolt Merges With Prana Therapies
Then came the exit that was really a reinvention. In late October 2026 Bolt completed a reverse merger, a stock-for-stock deal in which it effectively acquired Prana Therapies, and the combined company would now focus on Prana's technology and its lead drug, PRA-216, an antibody for inflammatory diseases in mid-stage testing. Bolt said it did not plan further updates on its remaining cancer study, a clear signal that oncology was being left behind.
A $120 Million Placement Reshapes Ownership
Alongside the merger came a $120 million private placement, with up to $60 million more if warrants get exercised, money expected to fund operations into 2028. The ownership math told the story: old Bolt holders were left with roughly 7 percent of the combined company, while Prana holders owned just over half. Crucially, the cash was aimed at moving Prana's pipeline forward, not just keeping the lights on.
New Leaders and a 2027 Readout Calendar
Willie Quinn stayed CEO and Grant Yonehiro stayed COO, while Prana's co-founder and former CEO, Sheila Gujrathi, became chief strategy officer and joined the board. The company now had a real calendar to look forward to: patient results from four Phase 2 studies of PRA-216 were expected across 2027. A cancer company had become an inflammation company, and its future hung on those readouts.