Immune-Onc Therapeutics Secures $73 Million in Series B1/B2 Financing to Advance First-in-Class Oncology Pipeline

Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “Immune-Onc”) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing first-in-class novel tumor immunotherapies targeting novel myeloid immune checkpoints for cancer patients worldwide. The company recently completed approximately $73 million in Series B1/B2 financing. This round was led by Haisong Capital, with participation from prominent domestic funds including Yunion Healthcare Ventures, Zhongnan Ventures, Qianzhan Investment, Triwise Capital, Sherpa Healthcare Partners, Yanchuang Capital, BOCOM International, and Kinghand Capital; renowned international funds such as Octagon Capital and Sphera Healthcare; and strategic investors including WuXi Biologics. Existing shareholders, including Northern Light Venture Capital and Vivo Capital, also continued their support. To date, Immune-Onc’s total financing has exceeded $110 million.

The proceeds from this funding round will be primarily used to advance and expand the company’s first-in-class drug pipeline globally, as well as to support its operations in both China and the United States. China Renaissance served as the exclusive financial advisor for this financing round.

Meanwhile, Immune-Onc has received endorsement and strategic investment from the Therapy Acceleration Program® (TAP) of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® (LLS). Through this program, LLS will help accelerate the global development and commercialization of IO-202 for hematologic malignancy indications. In August 2020, Immune-Onc announced that it had secured over $2 million in research funding from the U.S. National Cancer Institute to advance the clinical development of IO-202.

Commenting on the transaction, Dr. Xiaoling Liao, Co-founder and CEO of Immune-Onc Therapeutics, stated, “We are greatly encouraged by the investors’ recognition of our team’s capability to independently develop first-in-class global novel drugs. This oversubscribed financing round will enable us to continue accelerating the advancement of our product pipeline, expand the clinical development of our core products, strengthen our talent pool, and support our global operations. We remain committed to building our pipeline into a series of next-generation cancer immunotherapies, thereby benefiting cancer patients worldwide.”

As the lead investor in this round, Mr. Chen Liguang, CEO and Managing Partner of Haisong Capital, has joined the company’s Board of Directors and stated: “Myeloid immune checkpoint inhibitors hold transformative potential in cancer immunotherapy. Immune-Onc’s pipeline, which targets novel myeloid immune checkpoints, includes multiple first-in-class candidates with significant promise for both hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. The company boasts a highly experienced and execution-driven drug development team, along with a diversified product portfolio. We are confident in the company’s growth prospects. Haisong Capital is honored to lead this financing round and support Immune-Onc, standing at the forefront of innovation and growing alongside the company.”

Dr. Zhang Xiao, Partner at China Renaissance Capital, the exclusive financial advisor for this transaction, stated, “In recent years, the development of targets related to myeloid cell immunosuppression has emerged as a new trend in the field of cancer immunotherapy, with several landmark deals being announced. As an outstanding company deeply committed to this sector, Immune-Onc Therapeutics has achieved global leadership in the R&D of LILRB series targets, holding promise to address a range of currently unmet medical needs. We are delighted that the company has gained recognition from multiple specialized healthcare funds, and we look forward to this round of financing supporting the company’s growth and accelerating the clinical development and eventual commercialization of its product pipeline.”

Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc. (“Immune-Onc”) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing first-in-class tumor immunotherapies that target novel myeloid immune checkpoints for cancer patients worldwide. Co-founded in 2016 by Dr. Xiaoling Liao, a Chinese scientist, and Dr. Guoliang Yu, a serial entrepreneur, the company is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. The company’s team comprises leaders in the biopharmaceutical industry with extensive experience in translational science, clinical medicine, regulatory submissions, and commercialization. Notably, the majority of the management team hails from Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, where they led or contributed to more than 50 Investigational New Drug (IND) applications and the approval and launch of seven innovative drugs, including three blockbuster drugs with annual sales exceeding $1 billion each. Through long-term collaborations with world-renowned academic institutions such as The University of Texas System, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and leveraging the team’s rich drug development expertise, Immune-Onc has built multiple first-in-class drug pipelines targeting various myeloid immune checkpoints to address urgent unmet medical needs. As one of the first biopharmaceutical companies globally to develop innovative therapies targeting the Leukocyte Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor Subfamily B (LILRB), the company has established a series of proprietary experimental models, methods, and tools, and constructed a systematic platform spanning target validation, candidate drug screening and optimization, and clinical development, laying a solid foundation for the further advancement of its product pipeline and expansion into new indications.

Haisong Capital is a professional investment management institution dedicated to long-term and value investing. It focuses on investing in high-tech and healthcare enterprises led by innovative technologies, particularly those with breakthrough and revolutionary innovations. By providing long-term, continuous support to outstanding entrepreneurs, complemented by international operational management expertise and extensive industry resources, Haisong Capital helps companies achieve rapid growth.

Yunion Healthcare Ventures’ investors include leading pharmaceutical companies in the industry. Research-driven, the fund deeply explores global investment opportunities in frontier innovative drugs, medical technologies, and devices, and co-incubates companies with top scientists, principal investigators (PIs), and clinical translation teams to address the challenge of taking source innovation from 0 to 1.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® (LLS) is a global leader in the fight against cancer, with a mission to “cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.” The Society’s Therapy Acceleration Program® (TAP) is a strategic action plan designed to forge commercial alliances and collaborations with biotechnology companies and academic researchers, aiming to identify and validate breakthrough therapies that have the potential to transform standard treatment paradigms. TAP helps advance these therapies through the drug development and approval process by funding late-stage preclinical studies, proof-of-concept trials, or registration-enabling clinical trials.