Hummingbird Bioscience Secures $19 Million Series B Financing to Advance Novel Precision Antibody Therapies

On December 5, 2019, VCBeat learned that Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company Hummingbird Bioscience announced the completion of a $19 million Series B financing round. The round was co-led by Mirae Asset Venture Investment and GNTech Venture Capital, with participation from existing investors Heritas Capital and Seeds Capital, as well as new investors Delian Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, DAValue-GiltEdge, HB Investment, Wooshin Venture Investment, and Kiwoom Investment-Shinhan Capital.

Hummingbird Bioscience is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing novel, breakthrough precision antibody therapies for refractory diseases. The funds raised in this round will be used to support the discovery of new targets, expand the company’s portfolio of first-in-class and best-in-class antibody therapies, and fund collaborative R&D efforts under the multi-target collaboration agreement signed with Amgen in September. The company expects to submit investigational new drug (IND) applications in the second half of 2020, with its lead candidates, HMBD-001 and HMBD-002, advancing into human clinical trials.

“With our world-class experts in cancer systems biology, multi-omics, and information technology teams, Hummingbird Bioscience is at the forefront of scientific discovery. Support from strategic investors will drive our translational science and accelerate the drug development process,” said Dr. Piers Ingram, CEO and Co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. “Our innovative platform enables the precise validation of previously undruggable targets and facilitates the further development of targeted antibodies. The development of two lead candidates has already demonstrated the capabilities of this platform, and we are currently collaborating with world-renowned institutions, such as Cancer Research UK and the Texas Institute for Cancer Prevention, on clinical trials. We will continue to build a pipeline across diverse disease areas, bringing therapeutic hope to patients with cancer and other diseases.”

It is reported that, to date, Hummingbird Bioscience has secured over US$60 million in funding through financing rounds and strategic collaborations.

Jae Joon Kim, Managing Director at Mirae Asset Venture Investment, stated, “Hummingbird Bioscience has developed a differentiated rational antibody discovery platform capable of designing and generating candidate therapeutic antibodies against challenging yet high-value targets. We are optimistic about the company’s potential to create breakthrough therapies that will benefit patients with severe conditions. We are delighted to collaborate with Hummingbird Bioscience’s experienced management team and fellow investors.”

Zhao Guobao, Senior Vice President of Delian Capital, stated, “In recent years, the biopharmaceutical industry has made tremendous progress, yet many promising targets remain difficult to drug, leaving significant unmet needs. Hummingbird Bioscience’s RAD antibody discovery platform enables the precise development of antibody therapeutics against such hard-to-drug targets. We are optimistic about the value of the RAD platform in this area, as well as the company’s highly promising management team, which has established extensive and in-depth collaborations with world-class research institutions and large pharmaceutical companies within a very short period.”

Hummingbird Bioscience is an innovative biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering and developing novel, breakthrough precision antibody therapies for refractory diseases. Leveraging its proprietary rational antibody discovery platform and extensive expertise in systems biology, Hummingbird Bioscience can accurately identify new disease targets, enabling it to engineer and generate antibodies that precisely engage these typically challenging targets. The company is extensively developing a pipeline of first-in-class and best-in-class candidates across multiple indications, including HMBD-001 (an anti-HER3 antibody) and HMBD-002 (an anti-VISTA antibody) for the treatment of cancer. Hummingbird Bioscience has established strategic collaborations with Cancer Research UK and Amgen, and has received product development funding from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

Delian Capital was established in 2011, focusing on technology-driven projects in fields such as high-end manufacturing, cutting-edge technology, and healthcare. It has invested in dozens of startups including Yuebo Power, Zhongli New Materials, Yisaitong, Venus Medtech, MicuRx Pharmaceuticals, Rokae Robotics, Huajie Aimi, and Mech-Mind Robotics, covering multiple sub-sectors such as robotics, intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise services, and healthcare. Delian Capital is committed to its mission of "co-creating value, sharing growth, and being a long-term trusted partner," and actively practices its core values of "professionalism and focus, openness and truth-seeking, unity and collaboration, integrity and innovation."