China GPs re-up in ArriVent Biopharma's $155m Series B

The round – led by Sofinnova Investments and General Catalyst – featured China-focused Shanghai Healthcare Capital, Sequoia Capital China, AIHC Capital, and Unicorn Capital Partners as well as US-based Catalio Capital Management, HBM Healthcare Investments, Infinitum Asset Management, and Hong Kong's Terra Magnum Capital Partners.

All existing investors re-upped, including Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), OrbiMed, Octagon Capital Advisors, Sirona Capital, and Zoo Capital. LAV and OrbiMed are active in China as part of broader remits, Octagon and Sirona are both based in Hong Kong, and Zoo is the early-stage investment unit of China’s Boyu Capital.

ArriVent secured USD 150m in Series A funding in mid-2021. Hillhouse Capital took the lead, supported by LAV, OrbiMed, Octagon, Zoo, and Lyra Capital. The company was founded around the same time by Bing Yao and Stuart Lutzker. Yao was previously CEO of Viela Bio and a project leader at Genentech, while Lutzker spent more than 17 years at Genentech.

The premise for establishing ArriVent was that many potential best-in-class drug candidates from China – as well as in markets like South Korea, Japan, and Europe – might never make it to market because of local development challenges. The company aims to globalise medicines for patients with unmet medical needs in a broad range of diseases, with an initial focus on oncology.

The Series A, which included USD 90m upfront plus additional proceeds upon the completion of certain milestones, coincided with the in-licensing of a drug candidate from Shanghai-based Allist Pharmaceuticals. The candidate, known as Furmonertinib, targets non-small-cell lung cancer. It is currently in phase-three clinical trials in China. Two similar candidates are in phase-one trials.

ArriVent is also working with US-based Aarvik Therapeutics on a treatment for solid tumours. Aarvik is responsible for the discovery and preclinical validation of the novel molecule; the ArriVent team will lead the development and commercialisation of the drug.

“With this Series B financing, we have now raised more than USD 300m to date, resulting in a strong financial position to further advance and broaden our global development plans for Furmonertinib, as well as support our growing pipeline of best and first-in-class oncology therapeutics,” Yao said in a statement.

The first generation of China biotech was largely based on in-licensing intellectual property from US companies and developing it locally. In recent years, the notion of out-licensing – whereby Chinese start-ups create their own treatments for patients worldwide – has gained traction.

A turning point came in 2017 when China was accepted into the ICH, a global pharmaceutical industry body that creates unified technical standards and guidelines for drug developers. This accelerated the entry of international treatments into the China market, and vice versa, through mechanisms such as mutual recognition of clinical trial data.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• North America
• Healthcare
• Early-stage
• China
• Pharmaceuticals
• Sequoia Capital
• General Catalyst
• Boyu Capital
• Lilly Asia Ventures
• OrbiMed