General Atlantic leads round for China's CANbridge Pharma

The round could well to $118 million, with the two lead investors holding the right to invest an additional $10 million apiece should CANbridge satisfy certain conditions. Additional contributions came from RA Capital Management, Hudson Bay Capital Management, YuanMing Prudence Fund, and Tigermed, another Chinese CRO.

PE and VC investment in China has started the year slowly, impeded by the recent coronavirus outbreak, which has brought much commercial activity to a standstill. Healthcare, however, is an outlier. Halfway through the first quarter, approximately $2.3 billion has been deployed in China, compared to $26.7 billion for the preceding three months. The healthcare share has risen from just 9% in the fourth quarter to one-third in the first six weeks of 2020.

CANbridge develops drugs for orphan diseases and targeted cancers, focusing on products that are unavailable or address medical needs that are underserved in the region. It has a global partnership with WuXi Biologics – a sister company of WuXi Biologics that focuses on more complex outsourcing – to develop and commercialize treatments for rare genetic diseases. Most of the new capital will go towards building out the rare disease business through internal development and partnerships.

The company has 11 drugs in its pipeline, of which five target rare diseases. Four are collaborations with WuXi Biologics and at the pre-clinical stage. The fifth, an enzyme replacement therapy for the treatment of Hunter syndrome, is already marketed in more than 10 countries. CANbridge has obtained the exclusive licensing rights for Greater China from GC Pharma, the developer.

CANbridge also has six oncology drugs, all licensed from overseas pharmaceutical companies. They include Caphosol, a mouth rinse used to treat oral mucositis – ulcers and inflammations in the mouth – caused by radiotherapy, and Nerlynx, which is used to tackle breast cancer tumors. Both have received approval for commercialization in China.

“CANbridge is an early mover and a leader in China’s rare disease market,” said Lefei Sun, a managing director and head of healthcare for China at General Atlantic, in a statement. “The company has built a rich pipeline of candidates, and we believe that CANbridge is well-positioned to capture the substantial market opportunity in the Chinese biotechnology space.”

Qiming Venture Partners led the company’s $10 million Series A round in 2014. It returned for the $25 million Series B in 2017, which was led by Lapam Capital and also featured Yuanming Capital, Yanyuan Capital, Biossom Investment Management and WuXi AppTec. This was followed by a $38 million Series C in 2018 from Qiming and other unnamed investors.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Healthcare
• Expansion
• China
• Pharmaceuticals
• General Atlantic