ImmuneOnco Snares ￥45M in Pre-B Round of Financing, Focusing on Cancer Immunotherapy

According to 36Kr.com, ImmuneOnco Biopharma（"ImmuneOnco"）has closed ￥45 million Pre-B round, co-invested by Shengzhou Minglang Industrial Development Equity Investment Fund Partnership (L.P.) and Shijiazhuang High-Tech Zone Puen Guoxin Equity Investment Center (L.P.). Tian Wenzhi, chairman and general manager of ImmuneOnco, said the funds raised would mainly be used for clinical research and development of the IMM01 project and the IMM0306 project.

ImmuneOnco, founded in June of 2015 in Zhangjiang High-Tech Park of Shanghai, China, is an early-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development and commercialization of novel cancer immunotherapy products designed to reverse cancer cell-induced immune inhibition and to actively eradicate cancer cells. Those products include bi-specific antibodies, novel recombinant proteins, target-specific natural killer (NK) cells. target-activated NK (TANK™) cell therapy, CAR-T cell therapy, and monoclonal antibodies targeted at immunoregulatory targets. 

IMM01 is a new generation of immune checkpoint inhibitors independently developed by the "mAb-Trap" technology platform of ImmuneOnco. Targeted at the immunoregulatory target CD47, IMM01 activates the phagocytosis effect of macrophages on tumor cells and delivers the phagocytic tumor antigen to T cells, thus achieve effective tumor immunotherapy.

IMM0306 is a dual-specific antibody drug with full intellectual property rights of ImmuneOnco. It is an antibody-receptor recombinant protein (mAb-Trap) targeting both CD47 and CD20. IMM0306 is capable of acting on tumor disease targets and regulating the immune system at the same time. Current preclinical studies have shown that this drug has a superior tumor treatment effect compared with similar drugs, and it is expected to replace Rituxan as the first-line drug for B-cell lymphoma in the future.