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Week in Review: Suzhou Innovent Raises $300 Million to Develop New Products

publication date: Oct 5, 2019
 | 
author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD

Deals and Financings

Suzhou Innovent Biologics (HK: 01801) raised $300 million in a secondary offering in Hong Kong (see story). The company plans to use the proceeds for newer drug products including three in-licensed products from Incyte and two first-in-class bispecific products developed in collaboration with Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), currently in Phase I clinical trials. The shares were priced at a discount of 6.8% to the previous closing price of Innovent's Hong Kong listing. One year ago, Innovent staged a $400 million IPO in Hong Kong, and its shares have climbed 83% since then.

Shanghai Hrain Biotechnology, a clinical-stage oncology immunotherapy company, raised $28 million in a Series B round led by Shenzhen Capital (see story). Hrain is located in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. Founded in 2015 by returnees, the company has "one center and multiple highlights." Its major emphasis is CAR-T products, but it also is developing other products using CAR-Natural Killer Cells, dendritic cell-based cancer vaccines. and invariant natural killer T cells. Hrain has started China clinical trials for two of its CAR-T therapies.

CanSino Biologics (HK: 6185) of Tianjin acquired China rights to a portfolio of inherited retinal disease treatments being developed by Ocugen (NSDQ: OCGN) of Massachusetts (see story). CanSino will also partner with Ocugen to provide CMC development and clinical supplies of OCU400, Ocugen’s lead gene therapy candidate. Ocugen's portfolio of novel clinical stage drugs are intended to treat rare eye diseases. In addition, CanSino will have an option to manufacture the candidates for Ocugen. An innovative vaccine company, CanSino has a viral vector program. No financial details were disclosed.

Singapore's Aslan Pharma (NSDQ: ASLN, TPEx: 6497) formed a JV with Bukwang Pharma (KRX: 003000) of Korea to develop preclinical aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) antagonists from Aslan’s early stage pipeline (see story). The JV, Jaguahr Therapeutics, will focus on new immuno-oncology therapeutics for global markets that target the AhR pathway. Aslan will transfer global rights to all of its AhR assets into Jaguahr. Bukwang will invest $5 million in Jaguahr to fund development of the assets, identify a lead compound and file an IND application. The JV will be based in Singapore.

Trials and Approvals

Merck/MSD (NYSE: MRK) announced China approval of Keytruda, the company's anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, as a first-line monotherapy to treat advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer without chemotherapy (see story). Previously, China's NMPA approved Keytruda as a first line NSCLC treatment together with chemotherapy, and in 2018, it was approved in China as a second-line treatment for metastatic myeloma. Merck said Keytruda caused a statistically significant improvement in overall survival compared to chemotherapy in a China extension of a global NSCLC trial.

I-Mab Biopharma, a Shanghai-US company developing novel biologics, was granted China approval to start clinical trials of TJD5, a novel CD73 antibody, in patients with advanced solid tumors (see story). I-Mab says TJD5 blocks CD73, a surface enzyme on stromal and cancer cells that causes the production of adenosine, a highly immunosuppressive nucleoside. Previously, the candidate started a Phase I clinical trial in the US to assess the safety and efficacy of TJD5, both as a single agent and in combination with PD-1/PD-L1 products.

IASO Biotherapeutics of Nanjing and its partner, Suzhou Innovent Biologics (HK: 01801) announced that their jointly developed CAR-T therapy was approved to start a Phase Ib/II trial in China in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (see story). IASO said CT103A was designed for rr/mm patients who have relapsed after CAR-T treatment. Because repeat CAR-T rounds are not effective, CT103A was developed using a lentiviral vector containing a CAR structure. IASO said 7 out of 8 evaluable patients in a China IIT study achieved very good partial response or better.

Clover, a Chengdu biotech, has started a China Phase I trial of SCB-313, its fully-human TRAIL-Trimer fusion protein, in patients with malignant ascites (see story). It is the fourth SCB-313 trial in China and Australia including three oncology indications: malignant ascites, peritoneal carcinomatosis, and malignant pleural effusions. The Phase I dose escalation trial is designed to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary efficacy of intraperitoneally administered SCB-313 as a single-agent for malignant ascites, which is most often associated with cirrhosis.

Disclosure: none.

 


 

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