China's Impact Therapeutics get $10m Series B round

Guangzhou Yuexiu Industrial Investment Fund, which is controlled by domestic conglomerate Yuexiu Group, also came into the round alongside fellow new investors Sungent Bioventure and Haibang Ventures. The latter two GPs are both specialist investors in healthcare and life sciences.

Impact received a Series A round from Lilly Asia, Cenova Capital and Wuxi AppTec Ventures in July 2014. The company was founded five years before that by Dr. Edward Tian, who previously worked for Pfizer and Transtech Pharma in the US, and Dr. Suixiong Cai, who has more than 20 years of drug discovery experience, most of it spent in the US.

Impact develops therapeutic treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It has several anti-tumor drug projects in pre-clinical and clinical testing, and the new capital will be used to help expand the product pipeline.

Driven by government reforms and expanding consumer classes, a number of healthcare-focused GPs have emerged in China in recent years. Lilly Asia started investing in the country in 2008 as a captive corporate VC arm of Eli Lilly and then spun out in 2011. Haibang Ventures' Haibang Talent Fund was established the same year with a remit to help Chinese returnees with healthcare start-ups.

Meanwhile, Sungent Bioventure is a joint venture between domestic real estate developer Sungent Holding Group and Suzhou Biobay, a life sciences industrial park. It claims to have invested in more than 20 companies since inception. Cenova and WuXi AppTec are also dedicated healthcare investors.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Healthcare
• Venture
• Early-stage
• healthcare
• China
• Venture