2022 is a milestone year for OriCell. The company has been focusing on the field of cancer immunotherapy for more than seven years and is fully committed to becoming an innovative global drug developer.
OriCell Therapeutics (Chinese: 原启生物) has announced the completion of a Series B round of financing worth more than USD 120 million. The funding was jointly led by Qiming Venture Partners (Chinese: 启明创投) and Quan Capital (Chinese: 泉创资本), with participation by Shanghai Sci-Tech VC (Chinese: 上海科创基金), J-one Capital (Chinese: 健壹资本), Suzhou Fund (Chinese: 苏州基金), Boquan Equity Investment Management (Chinese: 博荃资本) and existing shareholder C&D Emerging Capital (Chinese: 建发集团).
The new funding will go toward developing OriCell's cell therapy pipeline, the Company's proprietary discovery platform, and constructing a manufacturing plant for clinical and commercial purposes.
Founded in 2015, OriCell Therapeutics focuses on treating liver, ovarian, gastric, cervical, and non-small cell lung cancer.
It has developed several pipelines for cell-based immunotherapy. For instance, the Company's self-developed CAR-T product (Ori-C101) targeting Glypican-3 for the treatment of advanced liver cancer has been accepted by CDE (Center for Drug Evaluation, NMPA). OriCAR-017, China's first GPRC5D CAR-T product developed by OriCell, is used to treat relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). The investigator-initiated phase I trial had been completed and shown some promising results in RRMM.
* CAR-T Pipelines of OriCell Therapeutics (From official website)
As a participant in the whole process of OriCell's financing, William Hu, the managing partner of Qiming Venture Partners, said that China's innovative research ability and clinical capability continue developing and have the potential to lead the international new drug's R&D in some area. From the development path of start-ups such as OriCell, we see the trend that innovative Chinese enterprises have become an essential part of global innovation.
According to public resources, there are five registered ongoing GPRC5D-CAR-T clinical trials, including three in China, which were initiated by IASO Biotherapeutics (Chinese: 驯鹿医疗), OriCell Therapeutics and the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University (Chinese: 徐州医科大学附属医院). The other two were initiated by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Johnson & Johnson.
CARSGEN Therapeutics (Chinese: 科济药业) is also developing CAR-T cell immunotherapy for HCC targeting GPC3.