China’s Regor Therapeutics raises $90m Series B
Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV) has led a $90 million Series B round for Regor Therapeutics, a Chinese drug developer specializing in bioinformatics.
Vertex Ventures China, Loyal Valley Capital, Lanting Investment Management, and TF Capital also participated. It follows a seed commitment of undisclosed size in 2018 from Qilu Pharmaceutical Group in 2018, which has been styled as a Series A.
Regor aims to to deliver clinically differentiated, first-in-class drugs to serve patients globally by leveraging a proprietary technology platform. It says this platform integrates structural biology, computational chemistry, therapeutic biology, medicinal chemistry, and clinical development.
The company, which also maintains a presence in the US, claims to have advanced four projects to the pre-clinical stage within a 12-month timeframe. Speed is said to be achieved through internally developed computational tools. Focus areas include cancer, immune disorders, and metabolic diseases.
Xiayang Qiu, formerly of GSK and Pfizer, is the founder and CEO. His experience includes leading a team of about 60 scientists at Pfizer focused on structure-based drug design and associated molecular and computational technologies. This team contributed to the development of 29 clinical candidates.
LAV, which invests globally but is most active in China, closed its latest healthcare fund at $1.35 billion in January. It introduced a $450 million opportunity vehicle that sits alongside a core pool of $900 million. The coincides with a surge in China healthcare investment, with investors deploying a record $19.1 billion in the sector in 2020, more than the previous two years combined.
"With the next decade comes a historical moment for China's leap upwards,” Andy Lin, founding partner at Loyal Valley, said in a statement. "We are delighted to collaborate with veteran scientists, leading entrepreneurs and investment partners in biopharma industry. Together we are working hard for a better world by innovative and transformative medicines which make meaningful impacts to patients globally.”
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