Top Biotechnology Financing List Released! Two Chinese Pharmaceutical Companies Make The List

From the "prosperity madness" at the beginning of the year to the "capital winter" in the second half of the year, in 2021, the biotechnology industry has experienced a roller coaster year.

However, the market may not be as bad as thought. According to a report by industry media Evaluate, financing in the biotech sector will still set a new record in 2021, with private financing in 2021 reaching $28.5 billion, a 26% increase from the record in 2020.

According to Evaluate Pharma, last year there were 216 rounds of ≥$50 million, compared to 173 in 2020; 93 rounds of ≥100 million, compared to 63 in 2020.

But we should also note that the increase in the amount of financing in 2021 mainly occurred in the first quarter, after which VC financing gradually declined, and financing sentiment fell into a low point at the end of last year.

Judging from the 2021 list of the top 10 private financing of biotechnology companies screened by Fierce Biotech, cell and gene therapy (CGT) is a hot spot for financing, and new crown vaccines and therapeutic products, and AI pharmaceuticals are also favored by capital.

Among them, a biotechnology company from China, Aibo Bio, is the champion of private equity financing in 2021, with a total financing of more than 1.1 billion US dollars last year. Aibo Bio focuses on the research and development of mRNA drugs. At present, it has established an mRNA and nano-delivery technology platform with independent intellectual property rights. Its product pipeline covers the fields of infectious disease prevention and tumor immunity. The mRNA new crown vaccine developed by the company has entered Phase 3 trials in April 2021.

In second place is ElevateBio, which develops transformative cell and gene therapies, and closed a $525 million Series C in March last year.

COVID-19 products are still the "darling" of capital

Abogen Biosciences

In 2021, Aibo Bio is undoubtedly one of the most popular innovative biopharmaceutical companies. The company was founded by Dr. InBev in 2019 and focuses on the research and development of mRNA drugs and vaccines. In the past year, Aibo Bio has completed a total of 3 rounds of financing: 600 million yuan in B round financing in April, 720 million US dollars in C round financing in August, and 300 million US dollars in C+ round financing in November, with a cumulative financing of more than 1.1 billion US dollars .

Aibo Bio has now established a rich product pipeline, covering the fields of infectious disease prevention and tumor immunity. Among them, the new crown mRNA vaccine ARCoVaX jointly developed with the Academy of Military Medical Research of the Academy of Military Sciences and Watson Bio is the first mRNA vaccine approved for clinical trials in China. According to the research activity information released by Watson Bio in March this year, the on-site work of ARCoVaX’s Phase III clinical trials in China has basically ended, and data collation and continuous serum testing are underway.

Expro Bio is undoubtedly lucky, and successfully raised sufficient funds before the advent of the capital winter, laying the foundation for future recruitment, experimentation, clinical entry, and internationalization.

Adagio Therapeutics

Adagio focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of differentiated products in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. The company's lead product candidate under development is adintrevimab (ADG20) for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants.

In April of this year, Adagio Therapeutics announced the latest clinical data of ADG20, which showed that ADG20 achieved the primary endpoint and was statistically significant in the pre-exposure and post-exposure prevention and treatment of the new coronavirus. Compared with placebo, the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 was reduced by 71% in PrEP and 75% in PEP. Adagio plans to approach the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to submit an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application for adintrevimab for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in the second quarter of 2022.

Cell and gene therapy a new hot spot

ElevateBio

Founded in May 2019, ElevateBio focuses on immunotherapy, regenerative medicine and gene therapy, and is committed to building the next-generation cell and gene therapy BaseCamp platform, providing gene and cell therapy development companies with funding, R&D bases, and drug development and commercialization. After raising $170 million in Series B financing in 2020, in March 2021, ElevateBio completed another $525 million in Series C financing. While being highly sought after by capital, ElevateBio has also invested in three companies - AlloVir, HighPass and Life EDIT Therapeutics.

ElevateBio CEO David Hallal calls it "the first fully integrated technology company focused on cell and gene therapy by delivering end-to-end capabilities that enable partners to gain a strategic market advantage."

Laronde Therapeutics

Laronde is focused on developing circular RNA therapeutics. The company's technology platform is a new type of circular RNA called eRNA. Ordinary RNA molecules are very unstable molecules. Once exogenous RNA molecules enter the body, they will be degraded quickly. Lanronde claims that the eRNA developed by Lanronde can avoid this shortcoming and is a very stable RNA molecule.

Sonoma Biotherapeutics

Sonoma Biotherapeutics is focused on the development of Treg cell therapies. In August 2021, Sonoma Biotherapeutics announced the completion of an oversubscribed Series B financing of $265 million. Proceeds from financing will be used to advance Sonoma's regulatory T cell (Treg) therapeutic platform and novel effector T cell (Teff) modulating biologics into the clinic to treat a variety of severe autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and to further invest and expand manufacturing operations , to support product offerings for initial clinical studies.

Tumors, neurological diseases, and aging are key areas for new drug development.