Due to its large population base, the number of patients with autoimmune diseases in China is growing steadily, creating a tremendous downstream demand for immunology-based therapies.
Zenas BioPharma (Chinese：泽纳仕生物), a global biopharmaceutical company, recently announced its completion of a Series B round of financing worth USD 118 million. This funding round was led by Enavate Sciences, with the participation from Longitude Capital, Vivo Capital (Chinese：维梧资本), Rock Springs Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Agent Capital, Pivotal bioVenture Partners (Chinese：鼎丰生科资本) and Superstring Capital. Existing investors Fairmount, Wellington Management, Tellus BioVentures, Quan Venture Fund (Chinese：泉创资本), and Xencor, Inc. continued to invest.
The funds raised from this round will support the clinical advancement of Obexelimab, which is the lead product candidate of Zenas BioPharma, including a global Phase 3 registration trial in patients with IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD), which will be initiated in late 2022. In addition, the new funding will progress the company’s other global autoimmune disease programs into clinical development in 2023.
Founded in 2021, Zenas BioPharma, a biopharmaceutical company based in the United States and China, focuses on developing immunotherapy drugs with the commitment to becoming a leader in the development and commercialization of immunology-based therapies for patients in need.
Autoimmune diseases result from abnormally low or excessive activity of the immune system, causing the immune system to attack the body mistakenly. With the advancement of biological drug innovation, the Chinese autoimmune disease drug biologics market is expected to reach CNY 87.8 billion (USD 12.38 billion) by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 30% in the next decade.
Biomedical companies that focus on autoimmune diseases also include Sunshine Guojian (Chinese：三生国健), RemeGen (Chinese：荣昌生物) and ACEA Pharma (Chinese：艾森医药).