Enkaycel Therapeutics Completes Tens of Millions of RMB Series A++ Financing to Accelerate NK Cell Immunotherapy Pipeline

VCBeat exclusively learned that Enka Therapeutics (Shanghai Enka Cell Technology Co., Ltd.) announced the completion of a multi-million yuan A++ round of financing. This round was led by 3SBio, with follow-up investments from Zhangke Herun, Easy Capital, and others.The funds raised in this round will be used to accelerate the research and development and clinical trial progress of Enkaicell's pipeline products.

NKCell Therapeutics, led by a core technical team under Tian Zhigang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the European Academy of Sciences, focuses on the research, development, and production of innovative cell drug technologies based on NK cells. It is committed to providing patients with more effective and safer precision immunotherapy solutions. In March 2020, with strong support from the Shanghai Municipal Government, Zhangjiang Administrative Committee, and Zhangjiang Group, NKCell Therapeutics settled in the Zhangjiang Cell Industrial Park. In 2024, two of its NK cell products successively obtained clinical trial (IND) approvals from the U.S. FDA and China’s CDE. NKCell Therapeutics has achieved a transformation from laboratory to industrialization and a leap from preclinical to clinical stages. The company will initiate Phase I clinical trials for these products by the end of this year. Meanwhile, in non-oncology fields, multiple IIT projects are currently underway.

Dr. Fang Fang, CEO of EnkaicellStated: "NK cells are the 'natural killers' of tumors, viruses, and aging cells, which will greatly compensate for the shortcomings of CAR-T cell therapy. Synthetic NK cells (SnyNKTM) have the potential to break through the drug target limitations of CAR, achieving precision, versatility, intelligence, and controllability. They are also expected to advance into autoimmune diseases and age-related degenerative diseases. Moreover, NK cell products inherently possess the conditions for 'universal' and 'off-the-shelf' supply, allowing for batch production from a manufacturing perspective, reducing production costs, and making the price more affordable. The future development prospects in the field of cell therapy are very promising. We are very grateful to our new and old shareholders who support us during this capital winter, and we are confident in advancing our NK cell product to the next stage."

With the support of this A++ round of financing, Enkaiphar will continue to innovate, enrich its product pipeline, develop core technologies, and advance the clinical research of cellular products.

Enkaice Pharmaceuticals is committed to becoming a world-leading cell therapy company with a deep understanding of NK cell therapy and its cutting-edge technologies. It possesses proprietary allogeneic peripheral blood NK cell expansion, cryopreservation, and clinical "off-the-shelf" grade ABCDE-NK.^®Industrial production platform (single blood supply can reach a trillion-level yield of NK cells) as the foundation, with NK cell-specific tumor recognition receptor/ligand target mining technology (NKR-NK^TM) as the foundation, through synthetic immunology chassis technologies such as logic gate gene circuits (SynNK^TM), achieving multi-functional, intelligent, and controllable gene editing of NK cells, enabling them to precisely target cancer cells, adapt to the tumor microenvironment, and accurately match the effector/target cells of donors and recipients. Guided by solving major clinical disease (cancer, autoimmune diseases, aging and degenerative diseases, immunodeficiency and related diseases, etc.) treatment challenges, with the goal of realizing precision immune therapy, a series of original intelligent NK cell products have been developed. Striving to build an NK cell drug enterprise that continuously breaks through core technologies and maintains international leadership, aiming to become the birthplace of a new generation of global NK cell therapy technologies and products.

3SBio is a leading biopharmaceutical company that integrates research and development, production, and sales, committed to improving patients' quality of life with high-quality medicines and contributing to human health. Currently, the company holds over 100 authorized national invention patents and has more than 40 marketed products, covering various therapeutic areas such as nephrology, oncology, autoimmune diseases, ophthalmology, and dermatology. The company owns the National Engineering Research Center for Antibody Drugs and four major R&D centers with dual platforms for biologics and chemical drugs. It has a total of 28 products in its pipeline, 25 of which are classified as new drugs in China, along with five large-scale GMP-compliant production bases. In the future, 3SBio will continue to uphold the philosophy of "Cherishing life, focusing on survival, and creating a better life," striving to become a globally leading biopharmaceutical enterprise in China.

Zhangke Herun is a venture capital investment enterprise focusing on the broader healthcare sector, including biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and medical services. The Zhangke Herun Fund has the Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Fund as its cornerstone investor, with Zhangjiang Science Investment acting as the fund manager. It has attracted participation from the parent fund, industry investment institutions, and market-oriented funds, forming a diversified group of investors.

Yijin Capital (Shanghai Yijin Investment Co., Ltd.), established in October 2008, is an outstanding member unit of the Shanghai Venture Capital Association. The company focuses on venture capital investments in the fields of new energy, new materials, Industry 4.0, and high-end equipment manufacturing. With over a decade of deep cultivation in these areas, the company excels in industrial analysis and strategic planning, creating an ecosystem effect in the new manufacturing sector centered around new energy. It is one of the emerging private equity investment institutions in China.

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