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Week in Review: China Life Science Companies Raise Nearly $1 Billion Led by Legend's $424 Million US IPO

publication date: Jun 6, 2020
 | 
author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD

Deals and Financings

In a very successful debut offering, Nanjing Legend Biotech (NSDQ: LEGN) priced its US IPO above the expected range at $23 per ADS, raising $424 million (see story). The company's ADS's climbed 60% higher to $36.60 in early trading, giving Legend a market capitalization of nearly $5 billion. In 2017, Legend announced its anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy produced a 94% overall response rate in myeloma patients. Six months later, Janssen formed a 50-50 partnership with the company for the CAR-T candidate in a $1 billion-plus deal, including $350 million upfront.

Everest Medicines, a Shanghai biopharma, announced a very large $310 million Series C round to support clinical trials of its in-licensed candidates (see story). Everest was formed in 2015 with $50 million in initial backing led by China's C-Bridge Capital. At the time, C-Bridge described Everest as its incubator platform for bringing novel drugs to China. Ian Woo, president and CFO of Everest, previously said that Everest's plan was to acquire China rights to the best drugs of its partners, not assets that were sidelined during development.

Genor Biopharma, a Shanghai company with ten biologic candidates in clinical trials, completed a $160 million Series B financing led by Beijing's Hillhouse Capital Group (see story). The company's PD-1 molecule is currently in four pivotal Phase II trials. Its other clinical stage assets are mAbs and recombinant fusion proteins, a combination of novel drugs and biosimilars that target indications in cancer and autoimmune diseases. In late 2019, Genor was rumored to be planning a $200 million IPO on the Hong Kong Exchange, but that offering has not been officially announced.

Jiangsu Atom Bioscience raised $30 million in a Series B financing that will be used for discovery and development of novel drugs that treat metabolic diseases and cancer (see story). The financing was led by Livzon Pharma and Sequoia Capital China with participation from Kaitai Capital and Fortune Capital. Founded in 2012 Atom's novel APB-671 compound is in global Phase II trials for gout. Atom is also developing two candidates for NASH, gastric and colon cancers that are expected to start US or China clinical trials in late 2020.

Deep Informatics++ of Hangzhou, a company that offers AI-based pathology products, completed a Series B financing of over $14 million (see story). Founded in January 2017, Deep Informatics++ uses proprietary AI algorithms to develop multi-module diagnostic tools. Its products include: D-CleverEye (adds AI analysis to a microscope), D-PathAI (AI-assisted pathology diagnosis), and DPathAIS (an AI-based workstation). The round was led by CICC Fengtai Fund, a China Capital Investment Group fund, with participation from Legend Capital and Jiangmen Venture Capital.

Beijing Jiushi Shenkang Medical Technology raised nearly $14 million in an A round to develop its portfolio of neuro-interventional medical devices (see story). The company is developing cardio-cerebrovascular interventional medical devices for ischemia and hemorrhagic stroke. Its portfolio includes products to treat intracranial aneurysms, acute ischemic stroke, stroke pathways and stroke stenosis. The A round was led by Apricot Capital.

Jacobio Pharma of Beijing out-licensed rights for its two-molecule SHP2 program to AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) (see story). SHP inhibitors, which target a key node in cancer and immune cells, are expected to reduce cancer growth in several cancer types while they also increase immune responses. Although AbbVie will own exclusive rights to the SHP2 portfolio, Jacobio will conduct early global clinical trials of the molecules, with AbbVie paying R&D expenses. AbbVie will be responsible for global R&D though Jacobio has an option to develop the SHP2 program in greater China.

COVID-19 Pandemic

Harbour BioMed, together with its Dutch partners, has struck a deal with AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) to develop a novel COVID-19 therapeutic antibody (see story). One month ago, HBM, Utrecht University and Erasmus Medical Center announced they had discovered an antibody that targets the conserved domain of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. AbbVie will support their early preclinical development of 47D11, a fully human, neutralizing antibody, while it plans for later preclinical testing and clinical trials. In return, AbbVie has an option to in-license the mAb.

Gilead Sciences (NSDQ: GILD) announced positive results from a Phase III trial of remdesivir in patients with moderate COVID-19 disease, though the candidate provided only modest improvement (see story). In patients treated with remdesivir for five days, more than half (65%) showed better clinical improvement at Day 11 compared to standard of care. In the ten day treatment group, remdesivir's benefit did not reach statistical significance. Patient improvement was measured on a seven-point clinical outcome score. Remdesivir is being administered in the US to treat severe COVID-19 disease under Emergency Use Authorization.

Trials and Approvals

BeiGene (NSDQ: BGNE; HK: 06160), a Beijing cancer biotech, announced China's NMPA approved its BTK inhibitor, Brukinsa™ (zanubrutinib), for two cancer indications: chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) /small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) (see story). All indications are for second-line treatment in adult patients. In late 2019, Brukinsa was approved in the US to treat MCL. Brukinsa is the second BeiGene candidate to be commercialized. The company's anti-PD-1 antibody tislelizumab was approved in China, also in late 2019, as a third-line treatment for classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL).

At the virtual ASCO conference, Suzhou Innovent (HK: 01801) announced clinical results from three trials of its PD-1 drug, Tyvyt® (see story):
• In a Phase II trial among patients with relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin's lymphoma, the ORR was 85.4% and complete response (CR) 42.7%;
• In a two-year study among patients with relapsed or refractory extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, the ORR was 67.9% and the CR 14.3%;
• As a second-line treatment in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, the 12-month survival rates were 37.4% in the Tyvyt cohort and 21.4% in the chemotherapy group.
In 2018, Tyvyt was approved for use in China as a third-line treatment for patients with classical Hodgkin's lymphoma. It is currently being tested in 20 clinical trials.

Harbour Biomed announced that China's NMPA approved its IND application to conduct a Phase II/III trial of HBM9161 in patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy, an autoimmune disorder (see story). HBM9161 is a fully-human antibody targeting neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) that HBM in-licensed from Korea's HanAll Biopharma. The IND approval is the fourth for HBM9161 in China and the second to allow HBM to proceed directly to Phase III under an accelerated pathway. HBM is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with drug discovery operations in the Netherlands and R&D laboratories in Suzhou.

Disclosure: none.

 

 


 

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