In April, the number of fundraising rounds decreased compared with the previous month, dropping from 21 to 13. The amount of financing decreased slightly, from 142 million to 123 million.



One of the main contributors is LTZ Therapeutics with $40 million in funding of a series A+ financing round. The new funding will be used to advance the myeloid engager pipeline, especially the first candidate, LTZ-301. The product received FDA clearance of an IND application to initiate a trial to treat relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (r/r NHL).

Three iPSC-derived natural killer cell therapy companies completed new financing in April, including Nuwacell Biotechnologies, iRegene Therapeutics and Qiselian Biotechnology.

In April, ADC developer Duality Biologics launched an initial public offering (IPO) of up to HK$1.56 billion ($200.7 million) on Monday in Hong Kong. The biotech is setting aside 45% of its IPO haul for the development of two core products DB-1303 and DB-1311. DB-1303 is a HER2-directed ADC and was designed as a potential challenger to Enhertu.



In the past two years, the biotech has collaborated with notable partners including GSK, BioNTech, BeiGene, Adcendo and Avenzo Therapeutics. BioNTech has rights to DB-1303, DB-1311, as well as DB-1305.



April saw two notable out-licensing deals in China’s biotechs and multinational pharmaceutical companies. 



Hengrui Pharma licensed a PARP1 inhibitor HRS-1167 to Merck KGaA. This is Hengrui's first strategic collaboration with a global pharmaceutical company.

Earendil Labs announced a license agreement with Sanofi with upfront payments of $125 million and a total value of $1.72 billion. Sanofi will obtain exclusive worldwide rights of two AI-driven bispecific antibodies HXN-1002 and HXN-1003 utilizing Earendil Labs' proprietary AI and high-throughput discovery & research platform. 



Bispecific antibodies have once again sparked a trading craze. 

Qyuns Therapeutics announced a worldwide exclusive license agreement with Caldera Therapeutics for a long-acting bispecific antibody QX030N, targeting autoimmune diseases. 

Shanghai-based VelaVigo granted Ollin Biosciences ex-China rights to a IGF-1R/TSHR bispecific antibody VBS-102 with up to approximately $440 million in the aggregate.