Huadao Biologics Completes Nearly RMB 200 Million Series C Financing to Advance CAR-T Pipeline and GMP Manufacturing

Recently, HuaDao (Shanghai) Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “HuaDao Bio”), a cell therapy enterprise based in Zhangjiang Science City, completed a Series C financing round of nearly RMB 200 million. The round was led by Zhejiang Sinowisdom Holdings Co., Ltd., with follow-on investments from Chongqing Kexing Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd., Shanghai Yuhui Investment Management Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Houlu Investment Co., Ltd. This financing marks another round for HuaDao Bio following its RMB 100 million Series B strategic financing in July 2019.

The proceeds from this financing will be primarily used for the construction of Phase I of HuaDao Bio’s Songjiang Base (the pilot-scale production base for HD CD19 CAR-T Injection and the industrial-scale technical production base for the entire cell immunotherapy industry chain) and for completing the Phase I clinical trial of HD CD19 CAR-T Injection.

HuaDao CAR-Tcell was established in September 2017, focusing on the development of autologous CAR-T cell therapy products for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, as well as independent innovation across the entire industrial chain of cellular immunotherapy. In October 2019, its first cell drug candidate, CD19-CART cells, was approved by the National Medical Products Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) to initiate clinical trials. Additionally, several other CAR-T products are currently under research and development.

Currently, HuaDao CAR-Tcell has established a comprehensive production system for its CAR-T cell products, covering all relevant processes including engineered bacterial fermentation, plasmid purification, viral packaging, viral purification, T-cell isolation, T-cell transfection, and T-cell expansion, harvesting, and cryopreservation. The company has completed the development of a GMP-compliant engineered production system for CAR lentiviral vectors and is further refining the development of its proprietary engineered manufacturing system for CAR-T cell preparation.