Pharmaceutical company Celgene has participated in a $23m series A round for US-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company Aadi Bioscience.
The round was led by healthcare-focused private equity firm Hermed Capital and also featured Vivo Capital, Decheng Capital, Star Summit Ventures and Helsinn Investment Fund.
Aadi Bioscience is working on a drug candidate dubbed ABI-009 which it licensed from Celgene in 2014 in order to target various cancer indications and cardiovascular diseases.
The series A capital will support a phase 2 trial for ABI-009 in advanced perivascular epithelioid cell tumours, a very rare form of sarcoma – a cancer that affects the bones and soft tissues. The company expects to enrol 30 to 35 patients in the study.
Aadi also plans to launch a phase 1 clinical trial for pulmonary hypertension, a phase 2 trial for early-stage bladder cancer and a phase 1 trial for paediatric cancers.
Jerry Xiao, managing director at Hermed, will join Aadi’s board of directors, as will Mahendra Shah, managing director at Vivo; Richard Maroun, executive partner at Frazier Healthcare Partners; and Carlo Montagner, chief executive of pharmaceutical firm Specialised Therapeutics.