BOSTON, March 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Allorion Therapeutics ("Allorion"), a biotech company focusing on next-generation precision medicine for oncology and autoimmune diseases, announces the completion of a $50 million Series B financing round, co-led by INCE Capital and Qiming Venture Partners, with participation from TF Capital, Long River Investment (LRI), 3SBio, Octagon Capital, and Elikon Venture. Since its establishment in July 2020, Allorion has raised over $100 million from reputable institutional biotech investors.

The funds raised in this round will primarily support upcoming Phase I/II clinical trials in both China and the U.S. and the identification of clinical candidates for additional programs. Allorion will also continue to advance its established and validated early discovery platform technologies, including an allosteric inhibitor screening platform and a platform for discovery of synthetic lethality targets and molecules. The funds will also enable Allorion to further build world leading clinical development and business development teams.

As the Series B financing round concludes, Dr. Gregory Berk has officially joined Allorion as the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). Dr. Berk is a clinical research expert with over 30 years of experience in novel drug development. He will be responsible for building clinical teams in the U.S. and China, as well as designing and overseeing the Phase I/II clinical trials in both countries. Before joining Allorion, Dr. Berk held senior management positions as SVP or CMO at several renowned biotech/biopharma companies in the U.S., including Abraxis BioScience, Intellikine, BIND BioSciences, Sideris Pharmaceuticals, and GT Biopharma. His extensive clinical trial experience and industry network will help Allorion transition from preclinical research to the clinical development stage, developing new drugs to address significant unmet medical needs while creating value for the company.

Regarding the successful Series B financing, Peter Ding, Allorion's co-founder and CEO commented, "We sincerely appreciate the recognition of and support from both new and existing investors who participated in this round of financing. Since its launch in July 2020, Allorion has established wet labs in both Boston and Guangzhou, and currently has a strong R&D team of more than 50 full-time employees. In just two and a half years, the company has advanced two small molecules to IND stage in both China and the U.S. Our highly innovative technology platforms have generated first-in-class small molecule programs with immense clinical and commercial value, some of which have progressed to the clinical candidate selection stage. Allorion is also actively pursuing collaboration and co-development opportunities with several global pharma companies, who have shown great interest in our programs at this year's JPM conference, demonstrating a global recognition of our innovation. Upholding a science- and data-driven R&D strategy, we will continue to fully leverage our team's capabilities, platforms, and funds to advance clinical development and address unmet medical needs for patients."

JP Gan, the founding partner of INCE Capital, said, "With outstanding industry experience and excellent execution, Allorion has built and validated several world-leading early discovery platforms for next-generation precision medicines, including an allosteric inhibitor screening platform, a synthetic lethality target and molecule discovery platform, and an AI-enabled drug design platform. The team has also successfully advanced two molecules discovered by these platforms to the IND stage. We look forward to the clinical data of its leading assets and believe that the company's platforms will continue to generate highly innovative pre-clinical candidates to address significant unmet medical needs and serve patients around the world."

Kan Chen, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners commented, "Allorion team consists of industry veterans from well-known biopharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Merck, and Eli Lilly, who boast rich experience in small molecule drug discovery. The team has advanced two molecules to the clinical stage and verified the company's allosteric inhibitor and synthetic lethality screening platforms, demonstrating its strong execution capability. We are very much looking forward to the clinical data, additional high-quality drug candidates generated by the company's technology platforms, and its collaboration with international and Chinese pharma, driving more innovations valuable to human health."

Wei Cheng, Managing Director of TF Capital, commented, "It's very impressive that Allorion built a strong team with global competitiveness in just two and a half years. TF Capital is proud to support Allorion from angel round all the way through the B financing round and is happy to witness the company deliver exciting results one after another. Successfully entering the clinical stage is a critical milestone. We look forward to Allorion's continued progress in early drug discovery, clinical studies, and business collaboration,  ultimately benefiting patients all around the world."

About Allorion Therapeutics

Allorion Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech company focusing on next-generation precision medicine for oncology and autoimmune diseases. With highly innovative discovery platforms and a strong R&D team, the company is developing globally competitive drugs to address unmet needs of patients. Allorion has a total of 53 full-time employees in China and the U.S., including 15 executive team members with an average of 15 years of experience in top pharmaceutical and/or biotech companies. The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is composed of professors and clinical KOLs that are internationally renowned in the fields of kinase allosteric inhibitors, chemical biology, and clinical oncology. Allorion has advanced two small molecules to the IND stage.  ARTS-011, whose IND has been filed in China in recently, is an allosteric inhibitor targeting the TYK2 pseudokinase domain used to treat autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and lupus. ARTS-021, with its IND to be filed in the U.S. and China shortly, is a highly potent CDK2 isoform selective inhibitor for treatment of solid tumors such as ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancer. There are three additional projects nearing the preclinical candidate stage, including an isoform selective inhibitor, an allosteric inhibitor, and a first-in-class molecule targeting a novel synthetic lethal partner of an undruggable mutation. Pre-clinical development of these drug candidates will begin in 2023, and IND will be submitted in China and the U.S. in 2024. Allorion has established and validated a mass spectrometry-based allosteric inhibitor screening platform and a synthetic lethality target/molecule discovery platform based on phenotypic, chemical, and CRISPR screening. Allorion owns a proprietary library of nearly 200,000 high-quality small molecule compounds, enabling thorough and efficient screening. The company has identified confirmed hits for multiple projects and advanced them to hit-to-lead and lead optimization stages. Meanwhile, the company leverages its AI-enabled discovery platform, featuring chemoinformatics- and bioinformatics-based data mining, to increase its discovery efficiency and tackle  "undruggable" targets.

About INCE Capital

Founded in 2019, INCE Capital is a venture capital firm with an investment focus on early to expansion stage companies that spearhead innovation in technology, Internet, and consumer industries. The letters "IN" embody the firm's commitment to make intelligent innovative investment decision, or "CE" in Chinese. INCE's mission is to "empower the future greats".

INCE now has more than US $1 billion in commitments under management across its managed funds. The investor base consists of the world's leading university endowments, foundations, family offices, and funds of funds. INCE currently has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, China.

About Qiming Venture Partners

Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners is a leading China venture capital firm with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Hong Kong, Seattle, Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.4 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages.

Since our debut, we have backed over 480 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 180 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or by other means. There are also over 70 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn status.

About TF Capital

TF Capital focuses on investment in the life sciences industry, primarily investing in early-stage companies with high potential. Through strategic investments in various key areas and the right partnerships, TF Capital hopes to capture opportunities in the rapidly expanding Chinese life sciences market. Its investment team boasts years of experience and resources in the field and hopes to grow together with the portfolio companies.

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Source: Allorion Therapeutics