Harbour BioMed, a Cambridge, MA- Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Suzhou, China-based global, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, closed a $75 million (€67.4 million approx) Series B+ round of financing.
The round was led by new SK Holdings, Greater Bay Area Fund, Efung Capital, Zheshang Venture Capital and Zhejiang University Future Capital and JT New Century, which joined existing investors Legend Capital, AdvanTech and GIC Pvt. Ltd.
New investments!
The company also previously completed an $85 million (approx €76 million) Series B financing in August 2018. Now it plans to use the funds to accelerate the advancement of its clinical-stage compounds and portfolio of biotherapeutics for treating cancer and immunological diseases.
Dr. Jingsong Wang, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Harbour BioMed, said in the press release,
“More recently, we have leveraged the power of our antibody discovery platform in select other areas of great unmet medical needs, such as in coronavirus disease (COVID-19), where we have entered a collaboration with Mount Sinai Heath System in New York”.
Harbour Biomed was founded by Frank Grosveld, Jingsong Wang, and Liang Schweizer in 2016. To date, the Chinese-headquartered company raised $210 million (approx €188 million).
The company recently reported significant progress in its clinical development programs, including:
- Start of Phase 1 clinical studies with HBM4003 for the treatment of advanced solid tumors. HBM4003, a next-generation anti-CTLA 4 therapeutic, is the first fully human antibody-based on HBM’s heavy chain only (HCAb) antibody discovery technology. The trial, underway in Australia, is the first in an international development program that will inaugurate trials in the US, EU, and China. HBM recently received IND approval from the FDA to initiate its trial in the US. HBM4003 has shown potential in preclinical studies for increased anti-tumor activity based on enhanced antibody-dependent cell toxicity mediated Treg depletion and a favorable safety profile.
- Start of Phase 2/3 clinical trials of HBM 9161, an anti-FcRn antibody, for the treatment of multiple severe, autoimmune diseases including myasthenia gravis, adult immune thrombocytopenia, Graves’ ophthalmology, and other related indications. Phase 2/3 studies for several of these indications are expected to begin in the first half of 2020 in Greater China.
- Successful completion of a Phase 2 trial of HBM 9036 for Dry Eye Disease. HBM is preparing to start a Phase 3 registration trial in Q2 2020 in China.
- Start of Phase 2 clinical trials of HBM9167, its humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), for the treatment of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). The US FDA granted HBM9167 Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) for the development in treating NPC.
HBM has built a robust drug discovery engine based on its patented HCAb platform for generating novel, fully human heavy chain only antibodies, including bi- and multi-specifics. The company has operations in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and Suzhou & Shanghai, China.
Main image credits: Billion Photos/Shutterstock
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