Adagene Snags $69 Million to Advance Cancer Pipeline

According to BioSpace.com, Adagene has received an infusion of $69 million in a Series D financing round, led by General Atlantic, which provided $50 million. The funds will be used to support the development of its lead clinical assets under development as cancer treatments.

The latest financing round brings Adagene's total funding from private investors to $150 million. The company has been supported by F-Prime, Eight Roads, WuXi AppTec, GP Healthcare Capital, New World TMT, Sequoia China and General Atlantic, among others.

Adagene is a private, clinical-stage, leading-edge oncology immunotherapy company driven by its powerful Dynamic Precision Library platform built to deliver treatments with increased efficacy and safety. The company combines computational biology and artificial intelligence to design novel antibodies that address unmet patient needs. Its wholly-owned pipeline is comprised of novel immunotherapy programs with potential to be first or best in class.

Peter Luo, co-founder and chief executive officer of Adagene, said the $69 million funding round will boost the clinical programs for ADG106 and ADG116, as well as extend the "frontiers" of the company's novel technology. Adagene combines artificial intelligence and computational biology to design differentiated antibodies that have the potential to be treatments with increased efficacy and safety.

Last year, Adagene forged a relationship with ADC Therapeutics, Celgene (now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb) and the National Institutes of Health.  In the deal with ADC Therapeutics, that company planned to use Adagene's SAFEbody technology to create a masked antibody that can be combined with ADC Therapeutics' pyrrolobenzodiazepine cytotoxic payload technology to create an antibody drug conjugate against cancer. Only weeks before, Adagene and Celgene announced a deal to use Adagene's Dynamic Precision Library to discover antibodies against targets picked by Celgene.

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. Established in 1980, General Atlantic combines a collaborative global approach, sector-specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great entrepreneurs and management teams to build exceptional businesses worldwide.