Lilly Asia leads $90m round for China's Duality Biologics
Lilly Asia Ventures has led a $90 million Series B round for Duality Biologics, a Chinese developer of oncology and autoimmune drugs.
Yunion Healthcare Fund, Huagai Capital, NRL Capital, Green Pine Capital Partners, and Oriza Holdings also joined the round, as did Series A investor WuXi Biologics. The company was founded as recently as January 2020 but it has already accumulated $120 million in funding.
DualityBio specializes in a class of complex-molecule drugs known as modality drugs. These include biologics, which typically target immune system-related conditions, and antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), which are used to treat cancer.
More than 90% of drugs currently available are small-molecule in nature. Complex modality drugs have gained traction in the biotech industry in recent years because they can be tailored to interact precisely with the patient. This is believed to allow for more targeted, and therefore more effective, treatments.
“The booming of biotechnology makes it possible to develop novel modality drugs, which is not only an opportunity but also our mission,” John Zhu, founder and CEO of DualityBio, said in a statement. “The unmet needs of patients demand new therapeutic solutions.”
DualityBio’s has secured global intellectual property rights for its ADC development platform, which has brought several drug candidates into preclinical development. This work has leveraged WuXi Biologics’ existing ADC platform to build out the pipeline at a lower cost.
The company now claims “nearly” 10 best-in-class and first-in-class drugs, several of which have reached the approvals stage necessary for human trials. Its team, which is based in China and the US, has led clinical trials for more than 50 drugs and facilitated five innovative drug approvals.
The latest investment will support preclinical research, clinical trials, and an expansion of the pipeline through in-licensing, out-licensing, and research collaborations globally. The business development team’s experience is said to include more than 20 in-licensing, out-licensing and M&A collaboration deals worth a combined $5 billion.
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