Lepu Biotech Closes ￥1.29B Series B Financing

According to VCBeat, Lepu Biotech has raised ￥1.29 billion in a Series B financing co-led by Sunshine Insurance, Riverhead Capital and Ping An Capital, with participation from Haitong Innovation, SDIC Unity Capital, China Reform State-owned Enterprise Operation and Investment Fund and Qingdao Minxin Qiyuan. Proceeds from the latest round will be used to accelerate the development, clinical trials and marketing of several new anti-tumor drugs.

Lepu Biotech, a subsidiary of China medical device company Lepu Medical, was founded in 2018 to develop immunotherapies. The company has developed its core products PD-1, PD-L1 and antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidates for tumor treatment and they have entered the clinical stage I-III.

Lepu Biotech has also established an open industrial platform for target discovery, drug discovery, development, and production.

Shi Shenghao, the managing director of Riverhead Capital, said, "Lepu Biotech has high recognition of the capital market in the team experience, product lines, R&D capabilities, future commercialization and other aspects. We are very glad to cooperate with Lepu Biotech on the tumor immunity and targeted therapy, relying on the product lines of Lepu Biotech in the field of antibodies, ADC, and oncolytic viruses, to build an innovative biological drug combination platform of tumors."

Based on the R&D experience and the clinical value of the products of a company, Riverhead Capital focuses on the three fields of immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and gene therapy. Its investment covers monoclonal antibody, bispecific antibody, ADC, small nucleic acid drugs, oncolytic virus, cellular therapy, gene therapy, and therapeutic vaccines.

Riverhead Capital is the private equity arm of the Sunshine Insurance Group. Established in January 2015, it is the first batch of insurance private fund pilot units approved by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. The fund management scale has reached 17 billion yuan. At present, Riverhead Capital has invested in a number of companies in the fields of medical, pharmaceutical, Internet, and innovative financial services.

Ping An Capital is the core equity investment platform of Ping An Group. It mainly invests in industry-leading enterprises with mature business models and great development space. It uses Ping An Group's multi-dimensional resources such as customers, capital, and business to provide powerful value-added services to invested enterprises.