Chinese biopharma start-up raises $43m Series B

Betta Capital, Sichuan Health Care Industry Fund, Beijing Zhongguancun VC and Jinlong Group also participated. It brings Clover's total capital raised since 2016 to more than $100 million.

Clover is targeting what it sees as an underserved market for biologic therapies in China. Product development is carried out through an in-house technology platform that creates specialized proteins said to be effective on previous undruggable targets. Current projects include treatments for HIV and AIDS, seasonal influenza, and RSV, a common respiratory virus.

The fresh capital will be used to expand the pre-clinical R&D pipeline and advance a number of existing projects, including a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis expected to enter phase-three clinical trials within the year. This work will be carried out at a new commercial-scale facility near Shanghai that has been supplied with two 2,000-liter bioreactors by GE Healthcare and leverages GE's FlexFactory biotech platform.

"We are proud to invest in Clover, which has made great strides in advancing its proprietary platform technology from concept to human clinical proof-of-concept and is targeting diseases of high unmet medical needs globally," Tim Xiao, a principal at Delos, said in a statement. "We look forward to supporting the company in their development and also helping to create additional value from global collaborations."

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Healthcare
• Technology
• Early-stage
• China
• Pharmaceuticals