Rafael Holdings

Overview

Rafael Holdings was founded in 2017 by telecom entrepreneur Howard Jonas, who built IDT Corporation into a multinational carrier and later backed Straight Path Communications, whose millimetre-wave spectrum portfolio was acquired by Verizon in a landmark $3.1 billion deal. The firm originally listed on the NYSE as a blank-check unit before combining its drug-development subsidiary with a public entity, resulting in a corporate structure that holds both clinical-stage oncology assets and commercial real estate. Jonas serves as Chairman and CEO, operating the firm from Newark, New Jersey (per the firm's official communications). The firm's investment strategy spans two distinct silos: biotechnology development and income-producing real estate. In biotech, Rafael Holdings owns a majority stake in Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals and its CPI-613 cancer metabolism drug candidate, which targets mitochondrial pathways in pancreatic cancer and acute myeloid leukemia — clinical-stage programs advanced through institutional grants and public-market capital raises rather than a blind-pool fund. On the real estate side, the firm owns the 460,000-square-foot former Hoffman-La Roche campus in Nutley, New Jersey, repositioned as the ON3 life-sciences hub, and a 418,000-square-foot office tower at 500 North Franklin Turnpike in Ramsey, New Jersey. The portfolio concentrates on northern New Jersey life-sciences infrastructure. The firm operates with a lean public-company structure rather than a partnership-based family office. William Conkling serves as CFO (per the firm's official communications). In May 2024, Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals was merged with Cyclo Therapeutics, a publicly traded clinical-stage rare-disease company, to form Cyclo Raven in a deal backed by a $10 million bridge loan from Rafael Holdings — preserving majority control while adding an SEC-listed vehicle for the combined pipeline. The real estate holdings are segmented into units that can be sold, leased, or recapitalized independently from the drug assets. Rafael Holdings' structural differentiator is its use of a public-company balance sheet to bridge the gap between academic oncology research and commercial biotech exits, paired with a real estate portfolio that serves as a hedge and a physical platform for tenant life-sciences firms. Rather than fund drug trials through a traditional VC fund with a fixed lifespan, Jonas runs the asset as a permanent-capital vehicle where the real estate generates recurring revenue and the drug candidates are advanced through milestone-attached tranches — a governance model that insulates clinical decisions from outside limited-partner redemption pressures.