Korea's Orum Therapeutics secures $30m Series B
Orum Therapeutics, a Korean biotechnology developer targeting cancer and rare diseases, has secured a $30 million Series B round from a group including IMM Investment and InterVest.
Smilegate Investment, KTB Network, and Stassets Investment also joined the round, alongside KB Investment and Solidus Investment. The latter two also joined InterVest and LB Investment in an approximately $8 million Series A for the company in 2017.
Orum’s core offering is an antibody development platform called Oromab, which targets proteins inside cells that are not treatable with conventional therapeutics. The fresh capital will help expand existing R&D labs in Korea and the US, where the company was recently accepted into a biotech incubator.
“A large number of important therapeutic targets are currently considered undruggable, making drug discovery for these targets technically challenging,” Sung Joo Lee, founder and CEO of Orum, said in a statement. “By intracellular delivery of antibodies, our platform redefines what undruggable means.”
Korea’s biotech space is considered significantly dependent on support from local conglomerates and the government. The latter has launched a range of academia-linked R&D programs and a KRW113.5 billion ($96.5 million) life-science fund for start-ups.
Recent activity in this space includes a $11.5 million Series B for Standigm, a drug developer that uses artificial intelligence, and a $22 million Series B for TiumBio, which focuses on cancer, diabetes, and hemophilia. Earlier this year, a biotech division of Samsung confirmed plans to help local start-ups expand into China.
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