EdiGene Completes RMB 81.5 Million Pre-B2 Financing and Launches New Allogeneic T-cell Cancer Therapy Collaboration

On September 17, 2019, VCBeat learned that gene-editing biotech company EdiGene Inc. had successfully completed an RMB 81.5 million Pre-B2 financing round. This round was jointly invested by IDG Capital, the lead investor in the Series A round, and Lilly Asia Ventures, the lead investor in the Pre-B round.

Meanwhile, Boya JiYin also announced the launch of a new R&D collaboration to expand its allogeneic T-cell cancer therapy pipeline. The partner is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing innovative T-cell therapies. Specific terms of the collaboration and the name of the partner company were not disclosed.

Boya Ji Yin is a biotechnology company focused on genome editing technologies, founded by Professor Wei Wensheng, an internationally renowned expert in genome editing. The company is dedicated to developing new therapies for diseases that are difficult to treat with conventional methods, as well as providing more innovative solutions for drug development. Boya Ji Yin's pipeline of gene-editing therapies under research includes treatments for β-thalassemia and hematologic malignancies, among others. Its current product development pipeline is advancing in parallel with those of internationally leading gene-editing therapy companies.

In 2016, Boya JiYin received the China Patent Excellence Award. In 2018, it was honored with the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Award and was listed by the top-tier industry journal Nature Biotechnology as one of the ten capital-favored, technology-intensive startups of 2017. Currently, Boya JiYin has subsidiaries in Beijing and Guangzhou, China, as well as in Boston, USA.

“Allogeneic T-cell therapies hold the promise of being ‘off-the-shelf,’ with robust quality control and lower costs, demonstrating significant potential in China and other regions. We have been building our allogeneic CAR-T platform. This new research collaboration further underscores our commitment to developing such therapies to help cancer patients in urgent need of treatment,” said Dr. Wei Dong, CEO of Boya Ji Yin. “We are pleased to complete this new round of financing and sincerely appreciate the continued support from IDG Capital and Lilly Asia Ventures. We look forward to working with them and our other existing investors to continue advancing Boya Ji Yin’s exciting R&D pipeline to the next stage.”

EdiGene, Inc. is an innovative biopharmaceutical company founded in 2015, headquartered in Beijing, with subsidiaries in Guangzhou and Cambridge, USA. Based on genome editing therapeutic technologies, the company aims to address urgent unmet medical needs by developing innovative medical solutions for treating intractable genetic diseases and cancer. Additionally, it provides creative solutions for drug development through high-throughput genome editing screening technologies.