Avistone Biotechnology, a Chinese biotech firm focusing on precision oncology therapeutics, has secured 1 billion yuan ($141.3 million) in a Series B funding round.
Investment firm IDG Capital and China-based CMG-SDIC Capital jointly led the round with participation from Yanchuang Capital and Cathay Capital. Existing investor Bain Capital also doubled down in the new round.
Chinese investment bank Lighthouse Capital, the financial adviser of the deal, made the announcement in a post on its WeChat official account on Thursday.
Avistone’s latest financing comes about two years after it raised a Vivo Capital-led strategic investment of over $200 million. Bain Capital and Primavera Capital Group had participated in the investment.
Avistone has completed the latest Series B round in a fundraising environment that remains challenging even for champions in the country’s once-hot biotech sector. Valuation corrections persist, as investors remain cautious due to tightening liquidity amid the country’s post-pandemic recovery.
Privately-held bio-pharmaceutical companies in China raised a combined 31 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) in the first half of 2023, down 28.6% from the same period last year. The number of venture deals in the sector also decreased by 21.6% year-on-year to 196 in H1, according to an August report by Pharmacodia, an industry consultancy in China.
However, China’s ageing society and urbanisation shift continue to drive demand for novel therapies and quality healthcare, which has given rise to several domestic biotech companies in recent years.
According to US consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the country’s biotech market is expected to grow to $96 billion by the end of 2023 from $40 billion in 2018, representing an annual growth rate of 19%.
Beijing-based Avistone has a pipeline of targeted therapies including two clinical-stage drug candidates and several ongoing programmes in the preclinical development stage.
The firm’s lead asset is PLB1001, also referred to as Vebreltinib, used to treat patients with a type of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Avistone in October received conditional approval from China’s medical products regulator, the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), to commercialise PLB1001.
Its second clinical asset is PLB1004, a potent inhibitor of EGFR tyrosine kinases (TKI), including aberrant activity observed in certain types of NSCLC tumours.
The new investment will support the accelerated clinical study of Avistone’s existing drug candidates and explore the commercial potential of its clinical-stage assets. With the fresh capital, the firm looks to speed up its new drug applications and commercialisation in both China and the US.
