Chinese drug developer wins General Atlantic backing
General Atlantic has led a $69 million Series D round of funding for Adagene, a Chinese drug developer with one cancer treatment currently in phase one clinical trials in China and the US.
The company has now raised more than $150 million in the past five years from the likes of F-Prime and Eight Roads – both investment arms of Fidelity International – as well as GP Capital, Sequoia Capital China, and local contract research organization (CRO) WuXi AppTec. The Series C, worth $50 million, closed in March 2018 and was led by Sequoia.
General Atlantic’s individual contribution to the Series D was $50 million. The private equity firm, which formally launched its healthcare and life sciences business in China two years ago, also has exposure to biotech through OcuMension, a specialist in treatments for eye diseases.
Founded in 2011, Adagene employs a proprietary platform – referred to as a Dynamic Precision Library – to drive discovery and engineering of antibody-based therapies for both pharmaceutical partners and its own product pipeline. It claims to combine computational biology and artificial intelligence to design novel antibodies that address unmet patient needs.
The company currently has six drugs in its pipeline, of which three are in the preclinical stage. Five of the six are wholly owned by Adagene; the other, a treatment intended to boost the immune system and help patients fight cancer, has been out-licensed to Sanjin. The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an investigational new drug application for the product.
Adagene has strategic collaboration agreements with several global partners. One of these partners is WuXi Biologics, an entity formed through a restructuring of WuXi AppTec. WuXi Biologics is involved in the outsourced development of more complex treatments than those typically covered by WuXi AppTec.
“We believe China is a rising, vibrant hub for global life sciences innovation. Adagene represents a new-generation biotechnology company that is driving global innovation. Its cutting-edge Dynamic Precision Library platform, combined with its dedicated founders and management team, allows Adagene to advance assets of true novelty to the value inflection point,” said Lefei Sun, a managing director and head of China healthcare at General Atlantic, in a statement.
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