Heji Pharmaceuticals Completes ￥280M Series A Funding Round

According to VCBeat, Heji Pharmaceuticals has completed a ¥280M Series A round of financing.It is jointly invested by Betta Pharmaceuticals, Hisun Pharmaceuticals, Tiger Pharmaceuticals, and Fusheng Investment.  So far, Heji Pharmaceuticals has reached cooperation with Corvus Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: CRVS).

Heji Pharmaceutical is a newly established biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to benefit Chinese patients and allow them to use the world's top innovative drugs for the treatment of serious diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases. Corvus of the United States will fully support the pipeline development and clinical research of Heji Pharmaceutical.

 Heji Pharmaceutical's product line will include Corvus's three clinical-stage pipeline drugs-Ciforadenant, CPI-006 and CPI-818 jurisdiction in China, as well as the global patent rights and commercial rights of the preclinical third-generation BTK inhibitor. Heji Pharmaceutical is establishing new drug research and development platform and preparing for a new drug research institute. Rapidly advance its own research and development to further enrich pipeline drugs.

The CEO of Corvus, Dr. Richard Miller, is the pioneer of BTK inhibitors in the world. He is the co-founder and CEO of Pharmacyclics (Pharmacyclics was acquired by Abbvie for US$21 billion in 2015). He led the world's first BTK inhibitor. The initial discovery and development of ibrutinib. Prior to this, he was the co-founder, vice president and director of IDEC (IDEC was acquired by Biogen in 2003 for US$6.8 billion). He led the research on lymphoma and eventually developed rituximab. 

Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a  biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of immuno-oncology therapies. Its lead product candidate is CPI-444, an oral, small-molecule antagonist of the A2A receptor that is in Phase I/Ib clinical trial for adenosine, an immune checkpoint. The company is also developing CPI-006, an anti-CD73 monoclonal antibody that inhibits the production of adenosine; an antagonist of the adenosine A2B receptor; and CPI-818, a small molecule covalent inhibitor of the interleukin-2 inducible kinase. Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 2014 and is based in Burlingame, California.