TF Capital, Long River Investment (LRI), 3SBio, Octagon Capital, and Elikon Venture all contributed to the $50 million Series B financing round that was co-led by INCE Capital and Qiming Venture Partners and completed by Allorion Therapeutics (“Allorion”), a biotech company specializing in next-generation precision medicine for autoimmune and oncology diseases. Allorion has raised more than $100 million from reputed institutional biotech investors since its founding in July 2020.
The majority of the money received in this round will go into identifying clinical candidates for further initiatives and supporting planned Phase I/II clinical studies in both China and the United States. A platform for discovering synthetic lethality targets and compounds, as well as a platform for screening allosteric inhibitors, are among the technologies that Allorion will continue to explore. Allorion will be able to continue developing world-class clinical development and commercial development teams thanks to the funding.
Dr. Gregory Berk has officially joined Allorion as the Chief Medical Officer as the Series B fundraising round comes to an end (CMO). Dr. Berk has more than 30 years of expertise in developing new drugs and clinical studies. He will be in charge of organising clinical teams in China and the United States, as well as planning and managing Phase I/II clinical studies in both nations. Dr. Berk worked in top management capacities as SVP or CMO at a number of famous biotech and biopharma firms in the United States before joining Allorion. These firms included Abraxis BioScience, Intellikine, BIND BioSciences, Sideris Pharmaceuticals, and GT Biopharma. Allorion will be able to go from the preclinical research stage to the clinical development stage, generating novel medications to meet important unmet medical needs, thanks to his vast clinical trial experience and industry network.
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.”
