Chinese Biotech Startup Laekna Therapeutics Nets USD 61 Million in Series D Round

Healthcare Author: Manyu Zhang Editor: Yiru Qian May 18, 2022 08:36 PM (GMT+8)

As a clinical-stage biotech company, Laekna has attracted several top investment institutions in the healthcare field.

Biopharmaceutics

The emerging innovative biopharmaceutical company Laekna Therapeutics announced recently that it completed a USD 61 million Series D financing round led by SDIC, Yanchuang Capital; Wanhui Capital and Infinity Capital also took apart. 

The prior Series C financing round was led by Shenzhen Capital Group in October 2020. GP Capital and OrbiMed participated in the company’s Series B and Series A rounds of financing respectively. 

The funds will be mainly used to promote the clinical research process of two core products: AKT (protein kinase B) inhibitor auresertib (LAE002), and CYP17A1 and CYP11B2 inhibitor (LAE001) which is the world's first dual-target in the clinical stage. The clinical studies cover three different key mechanisms, targeted therapy, hormone therapy and tumor immunotherapy, respectively.

Founded in December 2016, Laekna is a startup biotech company dedicated to developing new targeted therapies to treat cancer and liver diseases, covering the three areas of oncology, liver disease and rare diseases. 

One of the company’s fastest clinical trials is PROFECTA-II, a global randomized, open and multi-center phase II registration clinical research, which is the world's first registration clinical trial of the AKT inhibitor auresertib for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

At present, there are 14 innovative drug candidates in the company's product pipeline, and 6 projects have been approved for clinical research, including 3 international multi-center clinical trials (involving 1 pivotal clinical trial), all of which are aimed at the urgent and unmet medical need of tumor resistance.

"We are deeply impressed by Laekna 's R&D pipeline, independent innovation capability and talent team. We will work together to make Laekna a practitioner and leader in the biopharmaceutical industry to benefit patients around the world, " said the life science team of SDIC.