LAV leads $50m Series B for China's Lynk Pharma
Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV) has led a $50 million Series B round for Lynk Pharmaceuticals, a China-based drug developer that focuses on small-molecule treatments for autoimmune disease, inflammation, and cancer.
New Alliance Capital and Hangzhou Heda Industry Fund Investment came in as new investors, while Legend Capital and Med-Fine Capital re-upped.
Lynk received tens of millions of US dollars in seed funding from Kaitai Capital, Med-Fine, and Sinopharm Capital in 2018. Decheng Capital led a Series A of similar size in 2019, followed by Zhejiang Merchants Innovation, Med-Fine, and Kaitai. Earlier this year, Legend Capital took the lead in a $20 million Series A extension.
The proceeds from the latest round will support clinical trials, drive international expansion, facilitate collaborations with other drug developers, and finance preclinical development.
Lynk was founded in 2018 by a four-person team whose members had previously worked for the likes of Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. Focusing on unmet clinical needs, it was won investigational new drug (IND) approval in the US and China for three treatments, each of which began phase-one clinical trials last year.
The company has already out-licensed the ex-China rights of one treatment – for rheumatoid arthritis – to an unnamed US drug developer. It has also in-licensed global rights to RAS inhibitors that address hypertension from Kobe University and Riken Research Institute in Japan.
"We are deeply impressed by the efficient execution and global vision of Lynk Pharmaceuticals' management team. We are also very optimistic about the future huge market space and the unmet patient needs in the field of autoimmune disease and cancer,” said Ting Feng, a vice president at LAV, in a statement.
LAV closed its latest set of healthcare funds – which primarily operate in China, but can also pursue investments elsewhere that have a China angle – at $1.35 billion earlier this year. For the first time, a $450 million opportunity vehicle sits alongside a core pool of $900 million.
Small-molecule therapies represent the largest market share in terms of global revenue as well as US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approvals, and this market share has increased in the past several years. Other recent investments in this space include TransThera and Abbisko Therapeutics. Both have since filed for Hong Kong IPOs.
CEC Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Lynk on the Series B round.
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