Deals and Financings

CANbridge Pharma completed a $43 million Series E financing that is a follow-on to its $98 million Series D round, announced in February (see story). CANbridge is a Beijing company focused on rare diseases. The company said it would use the proceeds to expand its rare disease pipeline through internal development and external partnerships, advance clinical development of pre-clinical stage assets and launch Hunterase®, a treatment for Hunter syndrome. The E round was led by 3W Fund Management and included new investors Casdin Capital, Summer Capital, SPDBI and Yaly Capital.  

Shenzhen Xbiome, which uses AI to develop microbiome products, raised "tens of million dollars" in a Series B+ round to support development of its gut bacteria therapies (see story). The company is ready to start tests in 2021 of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) capsules that treat autism and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). The programs have already started China investigator-initiated trials. The B+ round was led by Primavera Capital and Gaorong Capital, with existing investors Legend Capital and 5Y (formerly Morningside Venture) participating.  

Suzhou's Ascentage Pharma (HK: 6855) acquired global rights to a MDM2 protein degrader developed at the University of Michigan (see story). Ascentage will have exclusive rights to the Proteolysis-Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) technology that uses the ubiquitin-proteasome system to induce degradation of targeted proteins. The lead drug candidate is currently entering IND-enabling studies. Previous MDM2 inhibitors block MDM2-p53 interactions and restore the tumor-suppressing activity of p53, but they have drawbacks, including dose-limiting toxicities. MDM2-driven tumors include leukemia.  

Chengdu's HitGen (SHA: 688222) announced its discovery collaboration with US-based Cedilla Therapeutics successfully identified small molecule candidates for cancer and other diseases caused by protein dysregulation (see story). HitGen applied its large-scale target libraries to discover compounds that met Cedilla's specified criteria. Cedilla received an exclusive license to these compounds plus IP for further development and commercialization. HitGen will be eligible for future milestone payments and sublicensing income from Cedilla, in addition to research payments and an upfront license fee.  

Infervision, a Beijing company that develops AI-based imaging readers, completed a D1 financing round of undisclosed size (see story). Founded in 2014, Infervision has launched eight programs that are fully integrated with medical workflows to aid the reading of scans. Its products are available in more than 10 countries in Asia, Europe and North America. The D1 round was led by Zhongguancun M&A Fund of Funds, with participation from Zhongguancun Science City, Shenzhen Yicun Tongsheng, Shanghai Lianyi and previous shareholders.  

Tolo Biotech, a Shanghai company developing CRISPR diagnostics, announced a cross-licensing agreement with fellow CRISPR diagnostic company Sherlock Biosciences of Cambridge, MA (see story). Tolo will have exclusive rights to Sherlock's CRISPR-Cas13 SHERLOCK™ diagnostic platform in Greater China, while Sherlock will have exclusive US rights to Tolo's CRISPR-Cas12 diagnostic technology. In May, Sherlock received Emergency Use approval in the US for its Sherlock™ CRISPR SARS-CoV-2 kit, the first FDA-authorized use of CRISPR technology.  

COVID-19 Pandemic

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Germany's BioNTech announced their partnered mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for use in the UK, the first acceptance of a coronavirus vaccine in the west (see story). Earlier, the vaccine was shown to be 95% effective in a large Phase II/III trial that enrolled 44,000 volunteers. Last month, Shanghai Fosun Pharma (SHA: 600196; HK: 02196), which partners China rights to the candidate with BioNTech, started a Phase II bridging trial to determine whether China volunteers respond similarly to the vaccine as people in the west.  

Trials and Approvals

Shanghai's I-Mab (NSDQ: IMAB) reported clinical trial progress for its "highly differentiated" anti-CD47 mAb lemzoparlimab (see story). In September, I-Mab out-licensed ex-China rights for the candidate to AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) in a deal worth up to $2 billion. In a US trial, lemzoparlimab is being tested with Rituxan® for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and with Keytruda® in solid tumors. The NHL trial is being conducted in the US and China, while the solid tumor trial is a China-only study.  

LianBio, a Shanghai-Princeton company, is approved to start a China Phase IIa trial of an FGFR inhibitor, infigratinib (see story). Infigratinib will be tested in patients who have advanced/metastatic gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with FGFR2 gene amplification. LianBio acquired Greater China rights to infigratinib from QED Therapeutics, a subsidiary of BridgeBio (NSDQ: BBIO), in a $532 million deal announced in August. The news came as BridgeBio filed a US NDA for infigratinib as a second-line cholangiocarcinoma treatment.  

Shanghai Junshi Bio (HK: 1877; SHA: 688180) reported the first patient has been dosed in a China Phase I trial of its anti-TROP2-Tub196 antibody drug conjugate (see story). Junshi says TROP2 is a receptor expressed at high levels in several solid tumor cancers (including breast, gastric, NSCLC, SCLC, colon and pancreatic). Over-expression of TROP2 is correlated with poor prognosis clinically. In 2018, Junshi's Tuoyi (toripalimab) was the first China-developed anti-PD-1 mAb approved for China use. 

Simcere Pharma (HK: 2096) of Nanjing was approved to start China trials of a novel treatment for gout (see story). URC102 is a selective inhibitor of uric acid transporter (URAT-1). One year ago, Simcere entered a $70 million agreement for China rights to URC102 from JW Pharma (KRX: 001060) of Korea. In a Korea Phase IIa trial, the candidate was effective and well-tolerated. Present therapies for gout have side effects that limit their usefulness, the companies said.  

Disclosure: none.