Oricell Therapeutics has raised more than $110 million in what it calls a pre-IPO financing. The company is developing CAR-T therapies for solid tumors, including a GPC3-targeted autologous CAR-T therapy for a type of liver cancer.
The new close announced Friday adds at least $40 million to the $70 million the Shanghai-based biotech
raised
in January. The round was led by investors including Vivo Capital, Beijing Medical and Health Care Industry Investment Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, and an unnamed “leading global healthcare fund.” An unspecified international sovereign wealth fund also participated.
Oricell
said
Friday that it would put the cash towards global expansion and clinical work, as well as technological development and “paving the way to capital market milestones.”
The company did not offer any specifics of its IPO plans.
Developing CAR-T products for solid tumors has proven difficult. The technique, in which certain white blood cells are taken from a patient, tweaked to fight cancer cells and then reinfused, has so far only resulted in approved therapies for blood cancers.
Oricell’s lead product is aimed at the liver malignancy known as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Called Ori-C101, this targets GPC3, an antigen that regulates cell growth. GPC3 is silenced in healthy adult tissue but expressed in several tumor types — HCC in particular, making it a popular target for CAR-T players.
HCC is unusually prevalent in China — about 45% of worldwide deaths from HCC occur there — as it is often caused by hepatitis B, which is endemic in the country.
Ori-C101 is in a China-based Phase 1/2 study called BEACON, and Oricell is preparing to put the asset into pivotal trials. The biotech claims the product could be both the first and the best in its class.
GPC3-targeted CAR-Ts are also being looked at by companies including AstraZeneca, which in January
took over
the development and commercialization rights to a GPC3 CAR-T program from its partner AbelZeta. The UK pharma already had a 50% share in the asset, which it refers to as C-CAR031 or AZD7003, under a
deal
signed in 2023. It will pay AbelZeta up to $630 million in upfront cash and biobucks to secure all the China rights.
C-CAR031 is an autologous, armored CAR-T initially based on a different AstraZeneca GPC3-targeting CAR-T called AZD5851. AZD5851 no longer appears in AstraZeneca’s pipeline.
Separately, the US company called Eureka Therapeutics is studying a GPC3-targeted T cell therapy in a Phase 1/2 trial, which could yield data next year. Called ECT204, this asset has completed the Phase 1 part of the trial. Eureka
said
that the program is engineered using its ARTEMIS CAR T platform, which is designed to improve the cells’ safety, tumor infiltration and persistence in solid tumors.
Another Chinese biotech, Guangzhou FineImmune, is testing a GPC3-targeting CAR-T in a Phase 1 trial, though data seem a few years away.