Temasek leads $80m round for Singapore biopharma player
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has led an $80 million funding round for domestic biopharmaceutical company Tessa Therapeutics with support from a number of venture and growth capital investors.
EDBI, Karst Peak Capital, Heliconia Capital and Heritas Capital Management also participated. According to a statement, the capital will be used to develop advanced solid tumor immunotherapy products and bring new cancer therapies to the clinical trial phase.
Founded in 2011, Tessa aims to revolutionize cancer treatment through products that help the body’s anti-viral immune response to recognize and kill cancer cells. It claims that its virus-specific T cell (VST) platform has demonstrated compelling results. VSTs are known to be capable of infiltrating and surviving in solid tumors long enough to destroy them from within.
Tessa focuses on cancers that impact the nose, throat, mouth, liver, lungs, cervix and stomach. The company is currently conducting phase-three trial work targeting nasopharyngeal cancer, a nose and throat condition caused by a viral infection particular to Asia. Some 80% of nasopharyngeal cancer cases are said to be in Asia.
Temasek has made a number of investments in the biopharmaceuticals space. Earlier this year, it participated in a $57 million round for drug developer Hangzhou Just Biotherapeutics and a $240 million round for Wuxi NextCode, a genome sequencing analysis subsidiary of China’s WuXi PharmaTech. The firm also took part in the privatization of contract R&D services provider WuXi Biologics in 2015.
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