Zion Pharma Ltd.

The series A investment round secures resources for advancing global Phase I/II clinical programs and orchestrating the company's global footprint expansion. SHANGHAI, Nov. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Allink Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering next-generation bispecific antibody and antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapeutics, today announced the successful completion of a $42 million Series A financing. The financing round was led by Lanchi Ventures, a preeminent global early-stage technology investor known for backing breakthrough innovations, with participation from an elite syndicate of new investors including Yuanbio Venture Capital, Legend Capital and C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment, alongside strong support from existing shareholders Gaorong Ventures and Med-Fine Capital. "Since our company's inception a little over a year ago, AllinkBio has rapidly advanced from lead asset PCC to clinical development stage," said Hui Feng, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AllinkBio. "We are grateful for the continued support from existing shareholders and delighted to welcome new investors who recognize both our scientific excellence and capability of translating scientific findings into clinical applications. Their support enables us to accelerate the development of our diverse pipeline spanning multiple modalities including next-generation ADCs and bispecific antibodies targeting oncology and immunology diseases. Looking ahead, we are poised to achieve multiple pipeline milestones in the coming months as we pursue our long-term mission of bringing innovative therapeutics to patients with significant unmet medical needs." "AllinkBio's exceptional execution speed and quality in advancing its lead program from preclinical to clinical stage, led by Dr. Feng, one of the leading figures in China's biopharmaceutical industry, demonstrates the company's high competitiveness in the field," said Lanchi Ventures. "AllinkBio's innovative approach to ADC development presents a compelling opportunity in the targeted oncology therapeutics space." "Our continued investment in AllinkBio reflects our strong conviction in the company's scientific excellence and execution capabilities," said Jiangtao Yu, Ph.D., Managing Director at Gaorong Ventures. "Since our initial investment, we have been impressed by the company's rapid advancement in both platform development and pipeline progression. We are excited to strengthen our commitment through this Series A financing." "We are delighted to have witnessed the fast and steady development of AllinkBio. Dr. Feng and his team's dedicated work in progressing two highly promising ADC drug candidates into clinical stage within one and half years since company inception has been really impressive. We believe the company has great potential and will continuously support its endeavor in developing innovative drugs for patients in need globally." said Angel Round lead investor Vince Deng, Ph.D., Partner of Med-Fine Capital. The Series A financing proceeds will be deployed to advance: Global clinical development of lead candidates ALK201 and ALK202 through Phase 1 studies in Australia, the United States and China Enrichment of current portfolio by developing multiple highly competitive new assets in oncology and immunology Further development of the company's proprietary bispecific antibody and ADC technology platform Global footprint expansion to achieve world prominence The successful completion of this round of financing marks a pivotal moment in AllinkBio's growth trajectory. With the new financial resources in place, combined with the company's efficient R&D capabilities, AllinkBio is well-positioned for expedited growth toward new heights on both its product and corporate development fronts. About AllinkBio Founded in 2023, AllinkBio is a clinical stage biotechnology company leveraging its innovative proprietary platforms in bispecific antibodies and ADCs to develop a diverse pipeline of First-in-Class (FIC) and Best-in-Class (BIC) therapeutics. AllinkBio aims to develop treatment paradigm shifting new drugs for patients in the oncology and immunology disease areas and address critical unmet medical needs globally. About Lanchi Ventures Lanchi Ventures (LCV), a leading early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing, focuses on investing in entrepreneurs who leverage technological innovations to create a sustainable impact. With its heritage in Silicon Valley since 1998, Lanchi Ventures (LCV) manages over $2 billion in capital through multiple funds and has invested in over 200 portfolio companies, including Gaussian Robotics, TCab, UniUni, Agibot, Galbot, Moonshot, Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), QingCloud (688316.SH), WaterDrop (NYSE: WDH), Ganji/58.com, Guazi, etc. The firm has been recognized by Forbes, Fortune, Preqin, and others. For further information, please visit . About Gaorong Ventures Founded in 2014, Gaorong Ventures is focused on early and growth-stage investments, with a specialty in new technology, healthcare, internet and new consumption. We have 24 IPO portfolios, amongst which, many of them have advanced to be leaders in their perspective industries, including Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD), Huya (NYSE: HUYA), BOSS Zhipin (NASDAQ: BZ), Roborock (688169.SH), etc. We continue to invest in the healthcare industry and are committed to discovering and accompanying leading companies in the fields of drug discovery, medical instrumentation and testing, digital health and medical services. Representative examples include Alto Neuroscience（NYSE: ANRO）, ProfoundBio (acquired by Genmab）, Sironax, Cornerstone Robotics, HYGEA, United Family Healthcare, Saint Bella, etc. About Yuanbio Venture Capital Yuanbio Venture Capital is a leading healthcare investment firm focusing on early and growth stage companies. Based in Suzhou bioBay, YuanBio keeps a global vision. With both RMB and USD funds, YuanBio has built up a portfolio of over 190 companies, covering biotech, medical devices, IVD, and healthcare services fields. The firm has seen great investment returns with 19 of its portfolio companies listed on the STAR, Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. YuanBio has received multiple awards as one of the leading healthcare VCs in China. With passion, dedication and expertise, YuanBio strives to become one of the most successful healthcare venture capital firms in China. About Med-Fine Capital Med-Fine Capital is a leading healthcare-focused venture capital firm in China, known for its capability of identifying promising entrepreneurs and investing in their NewCo formation round. Med-Fine manages multiple RMB and USD funds, investing across the healthcare sector including biotech, medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare technology and services. To date, it has grown a portfolio of approximately 70 companies, including Hanyu Medical, Mabworks, ImmVira Pharma, Zion Pharma, LYNK Pharmaceuticals, Eccogene, Pharma Legacy, MagAssist, Alebund, Allorion Therapeutics, Allink Biotherapeutics, Castalysis Bioscience, and VelaVigo. Med-Fine is dedicated to becoming a reputable investment institution with global impact. About Legend Capital Founded in 2001, Legend Capital is a leading VC&PE investor focusing on the early-stage and growth-stage opportunities in China, with offices across Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Seoul and Singapore. It currently manages USD and RMB funds of over US$10 billion and has invested in around 600 companies, covering technology, healthcare, consumer, enterprise service and intelligent manufacturing sectors. Over the years, Legend Capital has become a widely recognized name in bridging key resources in China and overseas through cross-border activities, and a valuable partner to Chinese and overseas investors. Legend Capital values long-term sustainable investment and incorporates ESG into its long-term development strategy. As a UNPRI signatory since November 2019, Legend Capital is among the first group of top VC/PE firms in China to join the initiative. About C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment is a professional equity asset management institution under C&D Group (Fortune Global 500). Established in 2014, our mission is to "create new value and help more emerging enterprises achieve better development." We specialize in new economic fields such as healthcare, advanced manufacturing, TMT/consumption. SOURCE Allink Biotherapeutics WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

The FDA has awarded Fast Track designation to CT-0525, a cellular therapy developed by Carisma Therapeutics, to treat solid tumors that overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). CT-0525 works by modifying monocytes, a type of white blood cell, to target and kill cancer cells. This therapy is based on the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology, but instead of modifying T-cells, as in traditional CAR-T therapies, CT-0525 adapts monocytes to express CAR that recognizes and binds to HER2 on the surface of tumor cells. This binding initiates the destruction of the tumor cells, particularly targeting those solid tumors prevalent in conditions where current treatments are insufficient. The drug is currently in phase 1, with results expected later this year. The trial includes patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors that are unresectable and have shown progression despite existing therapies. The study design incorporates escalating doses to optimize the therapeutic effect while monitoring safety outcomes. Recently, the HER2 target has garnered attention from drugmakers in the cancer field, with many establishing partnerships with Chinese biotech companies. In May, Roche acquired the global rights to Chinese biotech Zion Pharma's lead program, a drug designed to treat or prevent the onset of brain metastases in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.Back in April, BioNTech signed a $1.5 billion deal with China-based biotech DualityBio to co-develop and commercialize two cancer ADCs candidates, including DualityBio’s lead candidate, DB-1303, which is a topoisomerase-1 inhibitor-based ADC directed against HER2. Eisai and China-based Bliss Biopharmaceutical just announced a clinical trial collaboration agreement — with the option to license — for BlissBio's ADC candidate directed against HER2 for the treatment of cancers.

Roche recently penned three pacts in close succession, but the company's head of pharma partnering James Sabry said it isn't swinging into dealmaking mode. As one of the first Big Pharmas to embrace antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), Roche plans to make further bets on the popular cancer modality, according to the company's global head of pharma partnering, James Sabry, Ph.D. But biotechs looking for an alliance must first meet an invisible bar. “We plan to do more deals, and we plan to do internal work in ADCs,” Sabry said in an interview with Fierce Biotech on the sidelines of the 2024 annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Sabry’s comments—and a recent licensing deal—marked a change of public tone at Roche toward ADCs. Back in mid-2022, chairman and then-CEO Severin Schwan told reporters that Roche had “rather limited interest” in ADCs despite other companies’ growing investments in the field. Still, getting on Roche’s good side won’t be an easy task for prospective ADC partners—Sabry’s team reviews around 6,000 opportunities across all disease areas each year. “For Roche, what the biotech companies are competing with is our internal work,” he said. But that internal work isn’t necessarily visible to outsiders. When asked what internal capabilities Roche has built around ADCs, Sabry said, “You’ll see when the products come.” Roche currently has two commercial ADCs, both built with other companies’ technologies. HER2-targeted Kadcyla was made with ImmunoGen’s platform, and large B-cell lymphoma drug Polivy has Seagen to thank. But since forming those partnerships over a decade ago, the Swiss company had stayed quiet on the ADC deal-making scene, while the likes of Merck & Co., AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and AbbVie recently bought into the field. “We’re not a fashion company,” Sabry said. “We don’t just jump on a bandwagon because everyone else is doing it. We do things because we really believe that an innovative product will bring unusual value to patients.” Roche broke the silence at the beginning of 2024 by in-licensing a c-MET ADC from China’s MediLink Therapeutics. The deal came more than two years since AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu trounced Kadcyla in a head-to-head breast cancer trial. “Enhertu broke every rule that we thought about ADCs,” Sabry said. Roche once thought certain rules were true around the target’s overexpression level on cancer tissue, the drug-to-antibody ratio, and the stability of the linker. In the wake of the head-to-head fail against AstraZeneca's drug, Roche went back to the drawing board to renew its understanding of the modality. “There’s a lot of internal research we were doing in order to support deals like the MediLink deal,” Sabry said. It doesn’t mean Roche has fully understood the new rules of ADCs, Sabry said. “When you don’t know the rules, then you look for clinical data.” “The nice thing about ADCs is that you know clinically usually within phase 1 whether the drug is safe, and whether it has some effect,” he said. “So that’s what we’re looking for. It can be very early-stage clinical data.”   Cautious approach to platform deals As to whether Roche would buy out an ADC specialist similar to Pfizer’s acquisition of Seagen, AbbVie’s proposed purchase of ImmunoGen and Johnson & Johnson’s Ambrx takeover, Sabry said only when the external technology is “so different that we don’t have it on the inside” will Roche make platform deals. And even with platforms, Roche would typically form collaborations to generate multiple products. Case in point: Last week Roche put down $66 million upfront to access Moma Therapeutics’ platform to identify and develop “a certain number of” novel drug targets involved in cancer cell growth and survival. In a separate deal, Roche tapped Remix Therapeutics’ drug discovery engine to develop small molecules that target RNA processing. In the few cases where Roche has bought a company outright in the past, such as Genentech and Spark Therapeutics, the business would often be kept as a separate unit, Sabry observed. But Roche’s $4.3 billion takeover of Spark in 2019 hasn’t produced many results, leading to 740 million Swiss francs ($870 million) worth of impairment charges for 2022. “When we did the Spark deal, it was based on an enthusiasm around gene therapy,” Sabry said. “As you can imagine, that enthusiasm is still there, we still believe gene therapy will become a major type of therapy in the future. What we mean is that it’s going to take time for that to evolve.” In October, Roche penned a deal potentially worth $216 million with SpliceBio for a gene therapy against an inherited retinal disease, which is Spark’s sweet spot thanks to FDA-approved Luxturna. The gene therapy world just celebrated a major breakthrough with the approval of Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ Casgevy, the first gene-editing therapy based on CRISPR technology. Still, Sabry argued that the main limitation for gene therapy is the lack of ability to target specific cells effectively. “We would consider CRISPR, like, eventually,” Sabry said. How the MediLink, Moma and Remix announcements appeared in close succession raises the question of whether Roche has shifted into deal-making mode. But Sabry assured Fierce that “that was just the way they lined up.” The number of deals Roche negotiated last year, including the flurry of pacts announced in the last few days, was similar to the number in previous years, he said. Roche did appear to have spent more on later-stage candidates in 2023, including purchasing Roivant and Pfizer’s Televant for over $7 billion to get its hands on a phase 3-ready anti-TL1A antibody in bowel disease. Roche also splashed $310 million upfront to in-license Alnylam’s RNA interference hypertension candidate zilebesiran, which in September reported positive blood pressure data from a phase 2 trial.  A few trial failures have left some room in Roche’s late-stage pipeline and created an urgency to fill it, Sabry acknowledged. Besides, the biotech winter also opened projects up for the Swiss conglomerate to grab. But Roche didn’t start the year by setting a quota to balance drug discovery pacts and late-stage buys, Sabry said. The decisions are based on science. “We believe that the most interesting companies are the ones that dramatically change the way we think about what a medicine is,” Sabry said. He noted how Alnylam’s zilebesiran is the first to go further upstream of a signaling cascade than other existing hypertension meds. Roche’s pharma division currently doesn’t have any commercial presence in cardiovascular or metabolic diseases—although that looks set to change. When asked if the Alnylam deal indicates a new push into that area, Sabry said: “Yes, absolutely, we’re gonna be evolving into new medicines in metabolic disease [and] in cardiovascular disease, for sure.”   All eyes on China Another thing that Roche seems to be doing differently is that it’s recently started to partner with biotechs from China. In addition to MediLink, Roche’s Genentech paid $60 million upfront in August 2022 and committed $590 million in biobucks to in-license an androgen receptor degrader from Jemincare. By May 2023, the Swiss drugmaker was laying out $70 million in upfront and near-term payments to obtain a brain-penetrating HER2 molecule from Zion Pharma. Sabry called those candidates “world-class drugs” that can compete with others from Western companies. Roche has also set up a business development team based in Shanghai led by Harm-Jan Borgeld, head of Asia partnering. China has become a hotbed for partnering, especially in ADCs. MediLink has also out-licensed its ADC candidate to BioNTech, for example, while Hansoh holds two ADC deals with GSK. Merck also has a multi-program ADC collab with Kelun Biotech, and in December Bristol Myers Squibb shelled out $800 million upfront in a deal worth up to $8.4 billion for an EGFRxHER3 bispecific ADC from SystImmune, a subsidiary of China’s Biokin Pharmaceutical. “I believe China will become as powerful as America and Europe in terms of invention,” Sabry said. The biotech winter was also one of reasons behind the torrent of deals in China as local firms partner up to survive. “China has not matured fully into the late stages of development yet, but it will,” Sabry predicted. “The issue in China is that they don’t have mature management teams for these biotech companies, because they are still a young industry,” he said. Once Chinese biotechs and their management develop, they will find other resources to take them forward because “the capital flows where the innovation is,” Sabry observed. As for the potential risk of heightened geopolitical tensions, Sabry said: “When we go to China, we hope that the Chinese look at us and [think of us as] a Swiss company, not an American company.”