China Biotech Fundraising Tracker: Feb 2021

Writer: Minhua Chu

Editor: Justin Fischer

Drug developers in China received substantial injections of venture capital this February.  Of the 27 deals reported, 22 disclosed investment amounts totalling more than $953 million USD. One company, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, raised over $100 million USD.

Clover's  COVID-19 vaccine will enter late-stage trial in early 2021

Clover Biopharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in biologic therapies and viral vaccines. It announced the completion of an oversubscribed 230 million USD Series C financing in Feburary. This round of financing was led by GL Ventures and Temasek, with participation from Oceanpine Capital, OrbiMed, and existing investor Delos Capital. This brings the total capital that Clover has raised in the last 12 months to over 400 million USD.

Clover Biopharmaceuticals is employing its proprietary Trimer-Tag technology to develop novel biologics that target trimerization-dependent pathways. The company's COVID-19 vaccine candidate SCB-2019 (S-Trimer) is expected to undergo a global Phase II/III efficacy trial in the first half of 2021. Production plans for potentially hundreds of millions of vaccine doses in 2021 are currently in the works.

Clover has also developed vaccines for multivalent SARS-CoV-2 (covering multiple variants), rabies and influenza. Its pipelines include targeted immunoncology biological assets and Fc-fusion proteins. SCB-313, a novel TRAIL-Trimer fusion protein that targets intracavitary malignancies (including malignant ascites), is in multiple ongoing Phase I clinical trials in Australia and China and is showing encouraging efficacy signals and a favorable safety profile.  

Clover also expects to advance multiple new pipeline products to clinical trials in 2021 while further expanding its in-house R&D and cGMP commercial biomanufacturing capabilities.