China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals gets $230m Series C

The company claims to have received more than $400 million in funding over the past 12 months.

Its Series B round - worth $43 million - was announced in 2019. Lapam Capital and Delos were the lead investors. Clover's website also refers to a second tranche of the Series B in June 2020, which saw Hillhouse Capital put in $24 million.

Clover was founded as a research laboratory in 2007 and secured $9.5 million in Series A funding in 2017.

The company is targeting what it sees as an underserved market for biologic therapies in China, with a focus on oncology and autoimmune diseases, as well as viral vaccines. Product development is carried out through an in-house technology platform called Trimer-Tag that creates specialized proteins said to be effective on previously undruggable targets.

Clover expects to initiate a global phase-two and phase-three efficacy trials for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the first half of 2021. It has also initiated the development of a second COVID-19 vaccine that covers multiple variants as well as separate vaccines targeting rabies and influenza.

Another key asset in the pipeline is SCB-313, a novel protein targeting intracavitary malignancies. It is in phase-one clinical trials in Australia and China.

“Clover has had a tremendous year of growth with the rapid advancement of the COVID-19 S-Trimer vaccine candidate through clinical development, and we look forward to potentially seeing the company provide this much-needed vaccine to communities in need across the globe,” said Michael Yi, a partner and co-CIO at Hillhouse.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Healthcare
• China
• Pharmaceuticals
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Temasek Holdings
• Oceanpine Capital
• OrbiMed