On March 12, 2020 Harbour BioMed (HBM) reported successful completion of its Series B+ round financing of $75 million to accelerate the advancement of its clinical-stage compounds and growing portfolio of next generation biotherapeutics for treating cancer and immunological diseases (Press release, Harbour BioMed, MAR 12, 2020, View Source [SID1234555477]). New investors participating in the financing – SK Holdings, Greater Bay Area Fund, Efung Capital, Zheshang Venture Capital and Zhejiang University Future Capital and JT New Century – joined existing investors, including Legend Capital, AdvanTech and GIC Pvt. Ltd. The company previously completed an $85 million Series B financing in August 2018.

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The funds from the Series B+ will help drive these programs towards key clinical and development milestones. This round of financing further underscores both company’s existing and new investors’ confidence in HBM, and the team’s ability to execute with conviction and commitment.

"Over the past several months, HBM has made great progress in advancing two leading assets towards mid-late stage clinical trials in China, and we began international clinical studies with our first internally-discovered biotherapeutic, a next generation, fully-human anti-CTLA-4 antibody (HBM4003) for the treatment of advanced solid tumors," said Dr. Jingsong Wang, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Harbour BioMed. "Our discovery efforts have also been extremely productive, both internally and in collaboration with leading organizations around the world. In addition to HBM4003, our innovative discovery platform HBICETM has rapidly generated a robust portfolio of differentiated, fully human antibodies, including next generation bi-and multi-specifics. More recently, we have leveraged the power of our antibody discovery platform in select other areas of great unmet medical needs, such as in coronavirus disease (COVID-19), where we have entered a collaboration with Mount Sinai Heath System in New York".

The Company recently reported on major progress in its clinical development programs, including:

· Start of Phase 1 clinical studies with HBM4003 for the treatment of advanced solid tumors. HBM4003, a next generation anti-CTLA 4 therapeutic, is the first fully human antibody based on HBM’s heavy chain only (HCAb) antibody discovery technology. The trial, underway in Australia, is the first in an international development program that will inaugurate trials in the US, EU and China. HBM recently received IND approval from the FDA to initiate its trial in the US. HBM4003 has shown potential in preclinical studies for increased anti-tumor activity based on enhanced antibody dependent cell toxicity mediated Treg depletion and a favorable safety profile.

· Start of Phase 2/3 clinical trials of HBM 9161, an anti-FcRn antibody, for the treatment of multiple severe, autoimmune diseases including myasthenia gravis, adult immune thrombocytopenia, Graves’ ophthalmology and other related indications. Phase 2/3 studies for several of these indications are expected to begin in the first half of 2020 in Greater China.

· Successful completion of a Phase 2 trial of HBM 9036 for Dry Eye Disease. HBM is preparing to start a Phase 3 registration trial in Q2 2020 in China.

· Start of Phase 2 clinical trials of HBM9167, its humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), for the treatment of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). The US FDA granted HBM9167 Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) for the development in treating NPC.

HBM has built a powerful drug discovery engine based on its patented HCAb platform for generating novel, fully human heavy chain only antibodies, including bi- and multi-specifics. The technology is integrated with other advanced approaches – e.g., single cell analysis and deep profiling— to dramatically reduce the time to candidate selection from months to days.