China-based oncology and metabolic drug developer InventisBio has completed a $70m series C round featuring Lilly Asia Ventures, a corporate venture capital subsidiary of pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly.
The round was co-led by private equity fund Advantech Capital and financial services provider CMB International Capital Corporation and included asset management firm Pudong Innotek and OrbiMed Asia, a fund run by healthcare investment firm OrbiMed.
InventisBio is developing therapeutics to treat cancer and metabolic disease, and has advanced drugs for breast cancer, lung cancer and gout into clinical testing. It is also working on a non-small cell lung cancer treatment with partner Betta Pharma that is in phase 2 clinical trials.
Yaolin Wang, chairman and chief executive of InventisBio, said: “The new investment will accelerate the development of our clinical candidates into phase 2 trials and help us develop first-in-class drug candidates into clinical stage.
“Our goal is to develop innovative drugs with our own intellectual property rights, to achieve global drug approvals based on international multi-centre clinical trials for diseases with unmet medical needs.”
The funding was closed in January 2019 but only disclosed on Monday. InventisBio had previously raised $30m in funding, securing undisclosed amounts in a 2015 seed round led by Beautiful Mind Investment Management and a 2016 series A led by Lilly Asia Ventures and backed by SinoPharm Capital.
Lilly Asia Ventures returned for the company’s $17m series B round in mid-2017, which was led by OrbiMed Asia.
