China's Adagene raises $28m
Adagene, a China-based life sciences company focused on smart antibody technology, has raised a $28 million Series B round led by GP Healthcare Capital, the medical-focused subsidiary of China's GP Capital.
Existing backers Eight Roads Ventures China, F-Prime Capital, and WuXi Corporate Venture Fund also participated in the round, along with new investor New World TMT. The capital will be used to advance several of Adagene's programs into clinical proof of concept trials, and to support new research, according to a statement.
Adagene, founded in 2011, discovers and develops antibody-based therapies both for pharmaceutical partner companies as well as for its own pipeline. It claims to attain high quality in its development cycle through a proprietary antibody platform technology called the dynamic precision library, which enables the creation of software libraries with high fidelity between design and construction.
"As a leader in driving the next generation of antibody therapeutics, Adagene has created a novel platform for mono-specific and bi-specific antibodies that target previously un-addressable and challenging antigens," said Edward Hu, managing partner of WuXi Corporate Venture Fund. "The combination of speed and precision of the DPL platform has enabled Adagene to rapidly create a pipeline of novel therapies and ground breaking collaborations."
Eight Roads, F-Prime, and WuXi participated in Adagene's $8 million Series A round in 2014. At the time, Eight Roads and F-Prime were known as Fidelity Growth Partners Asia and Fidelity Biosciences, respectively.
Government reforms and a rising consumer class are expected to fuel growth in China's healthcare sector. Several healthcare specialists have raised sector-specific PE funds in the last several years, including Sino-US plays Vivo Capital and Orbi-Med Advisors, China life-science focused BVCF and HightLight Capital. In addition, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals partnered with Shanghai Real Power Capital last year to launch a healthcare-focused fund with a target of RMB3 billion ($469 million).
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