China’s Allist Pharmaceuticals raises $171m Series A
Shanghai-based drug developer Allist Pharmaceuticals has raised RMB1.2 billion ($171 million) in a Series A round of funding led by Shiyu Capital. Other participants include Loyal Valley Capital and Suzhou Industrial Park Bioventure Investment.
Established in 2004, the company focuses on treatments for tumours and diabetes. It has launched two drugs so far - one for stomach diseases and the other for high blood pressure. It has a further eight products in the pipeline.
“Allist products have high levels of effectiveness and safety. The company has the potential to develop and commercialise innovative drugs,” said Hongbing Yang, a founding partner at Shiyu.
The new capital will go towards drug development and commercialization as well as overseas expansion and recruiting additional talent, according to a statement.
Shiyu was founded in 2015 by Hongbing Yang, previously a director at Shenzhen-listed pharmaceutical company Harbin Gloria, and Jian Cao, formerly an auditor at KPMG. The firm focuses on growth-stage investments in Chinese healthcare companies. It closed its second renminbi-denominated fund at RMB3.2 billion in April. Past investments include contract pharmaceutical R&D services provider Wuxi AppTec and drug developer CStone Pharmaceuticals.
As much as $9 billion was deployed in China's healthcare sector in 2018, up from $4.7 billion the previous year, according to AVCJ research. A large portion of that capital has flowed into biotech start-ups, which accounted for $5 billion of the 2018 total.
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