Spelman College and IDEAYA Biosciences Announce Partnership for Professional Development of the Next Generation of Female African American Leaders in the Biotechnology Industry

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Jan 19, 2021, 06:00 ET

ATLANTA, Ga. and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Spelman College and IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: IDYA) announce partnership for professional development of the next generation of female African American leaders in the biotechnology industry through the Spelman College and IDEAYA Biosciences Health Science and Biotechnology Program.

The Spelman IDEAYA partnership is a unique academic and industry collaboration that will provide Spelman students a learning platform for pursuing a career in the biotechnology industry, through the guiding principles of mentorship and education.

The Spelman IDEAYA Health Science and Biotechnology Program will provide a professional internship and development program and scholarship for selected Spelman students who have interest in biotechnology as a potential future career path. IDEAYA's goal is to provide financial support and a unique and highly specialized experience for Spelman students with a longer-term objective to identify and develop the next generation of leaders in the biotechnology industry.

The selected students from Spelman will be sponsored by IDEAYA and be provided a summer internship at the end of the students' sophomore year. Support of the interns will continue through the students' junior and senior years through tuition scholarships, biotechnology specific educational opportunities provided by IDEAYA and biotechnology industry focused career and graduate school advice provided through an IDEAYA mentor. IDEAYA will also provide programmatic support to the Spelman Environmental and Health Sciences Department.

There will be an R&D and Business / Entrepreneurship track provided under the Spelman IDEAYA Health Science and Biotechnology Program.

"IDEAYA Biosciences mission and strategic plan closely aligns with that of Spelman College," said Rosalind Gregory-Bass, M.D., associate professor of environmental and health sciences and director of Spelman's Health Careers Program. "Cancer health disparities among people of African descent are highly significant. The desire to be at the forefront of oncology-focused precision medicine is of extreme importance to the population we serve. One key strategy to overcome these disparities is through Precision Medicine Technology. It is important to the way we as a country revolutionize medicine in the pursuit of better healthcare outcomes."

"As an institution with one of the nation's highest number of medical school applications from Black Americans, we are passionate about not only the discovery on new therapeutic options, but the delivery of the treatments as well," said Dr. Bass. "The technology being developed at IDEAYA will be pivotal to that end. Spelman students and faculty can significantly contribute to these efforts and positively impact the company, overall."

"We are ecstatic to partner with Spelman College in this scholarship program which we believe has the opportunity to identify and develop the next generation of female African American CEOs, entrepreneurs, and R&D executives and scientists in the biotechnology industry," said Yujiro S. Hata, President and Chief Executive Officer, IDEAYA Biosciences.

About Spelman College
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a leading liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, the College's picturesque campus is home to 2,100 students. Spelman is the country's leading producer of Black women who complete Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The College's status is confirmed by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Spelman No. 54 among all liberal arts colleges, No. 19 for undergraduate teaching, No. 4 for social mobility among liberal arts colleges, and No. 1 for the 14th year among historically Black colleges and universities. The Wall Street Journal ranked the College No. 3, nationally, in terms of student satisfaction. Recent initiatives include a designation by the Department of Defense as a Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM, a Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute, the first endowed queer studies chair at an HBCU, and a program to increase the number of Black women Ph.D.s in economics. New majors have been added, including documentary filmmaking and photography, and partnerships have been established with MIT's Media Lab, the Broad Institute and the Army Research Lab for artificial intelligence and machine learning. Outstanding alumnae include Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, Starbucks Group President and COO Rosalind Brewer, political leader Stacey Abrams, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman's first alumna president Audrey Forbes Manley, actress and producer Latanya Richardson Jackson, global bioinformatics geneticist Janina Jeff and authors Pearl Cleage and Tayari Jones. For more information, visit www.spelman.edu.

About IDEAYA Biosciences
IDEAYA is an oncology-focused precision medicine company committed to the discovery and development of targeted therapeutics for patient populations selected using molecular diagnostics. IDEAYA's approach integrates capabilities in identifying and validating translational biomarkers with drug discovery to select patient populations most likely to benefit from its targeted therapies. IDEAYA is applying its early research and drug discovery capabilities to synthetic lethality – which represents an emerging class of precision medicine targets.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements related to the effects of the Spelman IDEAYA Health Science and Biotechnology Program. Such forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause IDEAYA's preclinical and clinical development programs, future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainties inherent in the drug development process, including IDEAYA's programs' early stage of development, the process of designing and conducting preclinical and clinical trials, the regulatory approval processes, the timing of regulatory filings, the challenges associated with manufacturing drug products, IDEAYA's ability to successfully establish, protect and defend its intellectual property, the effects on IDEAYA's business of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, and other matters that could affect the sufficiency of existing cash to fund operations. IDEAYA undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of IDEAYA in general, see IDEAYA's recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on November 12, 2020 and any current and periodic reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc.