On October 14, 2021 Anticancer Bioscience (ACB), pioneers in synthetic lethal approaches to precision oncology, reported that it had secured an additional CNY 68.4 million (~USD 10.6 million) from new Chinese investors (Press release, Anticancer Bioscience, OCT 14, 2021, View Source [SID1234591246]). The seed extension financing was led by Three Rivers Capital, who joins existing private Chinese investors. The total raised in the seed round is now over USD31 million (around CNY 200 million).
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
The proceeds will be mainly used to accelerate the preclinical development of the company’s two most advanced programs, MYC-synthetic lethal and contact inhibition restoration. The funds will also be used to optimize lead compounds for polyploidy-synthetic lethal therapy and to identify additional lead compounds for the company’s contact inhibition restoration approach to combatting cancer.
ACB is applying synthetic lethal approaches to develop targeted cancer therapies. These have the potential to be much safer and more effective than current therapies. ACB has access to world-leading cancer biology expertise and drug discovery platforms that enable the company to identify novel compounds that can target both genetic and epigenetic vulnerabilities of cancer cells. ACB has bespoke chemical compound libraries and has invested in developing one of the world’s largest natural product libraries, providing a rich screening resource for potential cancer therapeutics.
Commenting on the financing, Dun Yang PhD, Founder, President, and CEO of ACB said, "This successful financing round is a further strong endorsement of our innovative approach to identifying first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, using synthetic lethal strategies. It underlines our progress over the past months and will help accelerate our five drug discovery programs through optimization to candidate selection and IND enabling studies. We aim to initiate two clinical trials in 2022."
Xiaoyin Chen, Investment Director at Three Rivers Capital said: "ACB is an emerging innovative biotech with global competitiveness. We firmly believe that only revolutionary innovations in drug discovery and development can generate great clinical benefits and value. ACB utilizes its unique small molecule libraries and screening approaches, combined with its multiple proprietary platform technology based on synthetic lethality, to develop broad-spectrum anti-cancer drugs and strives to become the pioneer in developing novel and next-generation cancer therapies."
ACB will be presenting its innovative drug discovery platforms and pipeline at the LSX Inv€$tival Showcase in November.