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Week in Review: China Life Science Starts off 2019 with $425 Million in Deals

publication date: Jan 12, 2019
 | 
author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD

Deals and Financings 

Apollomics, a Foster City-Hangzhou innovative oncology biopharma, raised $100 million in a Series B financing, led by CMB International, a subsidiary of China Merchants Bank (see story). Previously, Apollomics was known as CBT, the drug development spin-out of cancer CRO Crown Biosciences. In connection with the funding, the company has relocated its headquarters from Hangzhou, where it has R&D and manufacturing facilities, to Foster City, CA. OrbiMed Asia led the first financing of CBT. which was formed in 2016.The B round also included OrbiMed and several new investors.  

Schrödinger of New York City closed an $85 million financing to support its drug discovery platform, which is based on advanced molecular simulations (see story). The funding was led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and WuXi AppTec’s (SHA: 603259; HK: 2359) Corporate Venture Fund. In October 2018, WuXi AppTec formed Faxian Therapeutics with Schrödinger. Faxian will combine WuXi's lead optimization CRO with molecules discovered by Schrödinger's precision molecular design platforms. Faxian was formed to discover novel insights into the chemistry and biology of a target and indication. 

BrightGene Bio-Medical of Suzhou completed an $80 million pre-IPO funding led by Sequoia China (see story). BrightGene develops and makes innovative drugs along with difficult-to-make generic drug APIs and FDFs (finished-dose forms). It its pipeline, BrightGene is developing immunoncology treatments, orally available GLP-1RA peptides for type 2 diabetes, antibody drug conjugates for solid tumors, and novel non-antibody dependent tumor targeting conjugates for brain cancer and solid tumor brain-metastases. 

Everest Medicines, a Shanghai in-licensing company, acquired greater China rights to a multi-drug resistant, gram negative antibiotic from Spero Therapeutics (NSDQ: ASLN, TPEx: 6497) in an agreement worth up to $61.5 million (see story). Everest will pay $2 million upfront and as much as $59.5 million in milestones, plus royalties on sales. It will also have an option on a similar deal for a second Spero MDR IV antibiotic. A two-year-old company, Everest is backed by $50 million in initial financing led by China's C-Bridge Capital.  

Medbanks Network Technology, a Beijing oncology database company, completed a $59 million Series D funding, led by CLP Fund and CDH Investments (see story). Medbanks is building a China-specific tumor data platform that it considers state-of-the-art. It is aimed at serving clinicians, scientists and pharmas. Established in 2014, the company uses "sky eye hardware" to collect data from multiple China cancer centers, which follow a patient through the whole course of cancer treatment, from diagnosis to follow-up. 

Apic Bio, a Cambridge, MA gene therapy company, completed a $40 million Series A financing led by Morningside Venture of Hong Kong (see story). Founded in 2017, Apic is a spin-out from the University of Massachusetts. It develops drugs that either silence a mutant gene and/or augment the normal gene to treat rare genetic diseases. The funding will support development of Apic's treatments for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1, AATD) and genetic Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  

AirDoc, a Beijing AI healthcare company, completed a Series B+ round led by Ping An Global Voyager and CITIC Group, which the company will use for its disease diagnosis and healthcare data-mining services (see story). The first part of the B round, announced in April 2018, included Fosun Group and Sogou. AirDoc applies AI to its database of millions of annotated medical records, offering (1) software to assist in making a diagnosis, (2) real-time analysis of medical images and (3) large-scale data mining of clinical and health data.  

Ascentage Pharma of Shanghai out-licensed rights for a small molecule inhibitor of Bcl-2 proteins to treat age-related diseases of the eye to Unity Biotech (NSDQ: UBX), a Bay Area company (see story). As an upfront payment, Ascentage will receive shares in Unity Biotech. It will also receive cash milestone payments and royalties based on clinical and commercial milestones. Earlier this week, Ascentage announced a collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center to conduct US clinical trials of five cancer drug candidates. 

3SBio (HK: 1530), a Shenyang biopharma, will partner with Samsung Bioepis, a Samsung BioLogics-Biogen JV, to develop and commercialize multiple Bioepis biosimilars (including an Avastin biosimilar) in mainland China (see story). Under the agreement, Samsung Bioepis will manufacture the biosimilars. It will also collaborate with 3SBio on clinical development, regulatory registration, and commercialization. 3SBio will provide an upfront payment and pay clinical/regulatory milestone payments to Samsung Bioepis.  

CANbridge Pharma of Beijing and WuXi Biologics (HK: 2269) have added four drug candidates to their development partnership for rare diseases, which was originally announced three months ago (see story). CANbridge will have exclusive regional or global rights to the biologic therapies. WuXi Biologics will receive upfront, milestone payments and royalties. CANbridge also announced that it in-licensed greater China rights to a treatment for Hunter syndrome, a rare disease, from Korea's GC Pharma (KRX: 006280)  (formerly Green Cross). 

Adagene, a Suzhou BioBay antibody discovery company, will collaborate to discover a novel CAR-T candidate with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the US National Institutes of Health (see story). Adagene will work with Dr. Richard Childs, Chief of the Laboratory of Transplantation Immunotherapy at the Institute to discover antibodies targeting a novel antigen expressed on the surface of tumor cells. Dr. Childs' laboratory will convert these antibodies into a CAR-T candidate. 

Shanghai's Ascentage Pharma announced a five-year strategic collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for clinical development of five potential cancer therapies (see story). The five candidates, which are apoptosis-targeted and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, were discovered by Ascentage's Protein-Protein Interaction platform. They will be studied as single-agent therapies and in combination with approved or investigational drugs as treatments for various hematologic malignancies. 

Trials and Approvals 

Aslan Pharma (NSDQ: ASLN, TPEx: 6497), a Singapore oncology company, announced the US FDA has concluded its 30-day review of Aslan's IND application for ASLAN003 (see story). The company plans to evaluate the candidate in the US as part of an ongoing Phase II trial of ASLAN003 in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Trials are already underway in Singapore and Australia. Aslan believes ASLAN003, an oral inhibitor of DHODH, has the potential to be a first-in-class drug. It has Orphan Drug Designation in the US and Europe.  

Cellular Biomedicine (NSDQ: CBMG), a Shanghai immunotherapy/stem cell company, has started a China trial of its anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy in patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (see story). The Phase I trial will enroll 22 patients to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the candidate. In 2018, Novartis (NYSE: NVS) chose CBMG to be its China manufacturer of Kymriah®, an approved CAR-T therapy. Novartis invested $40 million in CBMG for a 9% stake in the company as part of the agreement.  

Biohaven Pharma (NYSE: BHVN) of New Haven, CT announced that China's NMPA has accepted its IND filing for rimegepant as a treatment for migraine (see story). Rimegepant is an oral calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist, a novel class of drug candidates for migraine, and if accepted, would represent the first new migraine treatments in 25 years. Biohaven said rimegepant has completed three successful Phase III trials in the United States.  

Disclosure: none.


 

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