JW Therapeutics Snares $100 million in Series B Funding Round

According to VCBeat, on June 9, 2020, JW Therapeutics announced that it had closed a Series B financing of US$100 million, led by alternative asset manager CPE and South Korea's Mirae Asset. CR-CP Life Science Fund and Oriza Holdings, as well as existing investors including Loyal Valley Capital, Temasek, Sequoia Capital China, ARCH Venture Partners, Juno Therapeutics, and WuXi AppTec also participated in the round. The latest round brought the total capital raised by JW Therapeutics to over US$200 million.

The funds raised will be used to further the leading product JWCAR029, a CAR-T cell product targeting CD19 in clinical phase II, further expand the R&D pipeline and commercialize new products. Li Yiping, the co-founder and CEO of JW Therapeutics, said, "We are very pleased and welcome our new investors. Through our joint efforts, we hope to accelerate the development of products to serve patients in China."

JW Therapeutics is a joint-venture company established by Juno Therapeutics and WuXi AppTec in February 2016. Focused on the R&D, transformation, and application of cell immunotherapy, JW Therapeutics is an innovative biopharmaceutical company in the clinical stage. The company aims to revolutionize cancer treatment by building the best and most innovative cell-therapy company. 

The Shanghai-based company has put into place a process development system as well as the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) manufacturing quality control system. It has obtained the first approval for the clinical trials of CAR-T product targeting CD19, with the largest number of patient enrolment under the Investigational New Drug (IND) pathway.

CPE is a leading alternative asset manager, with asset classes spanning private equity, mezzanine and the public market. Founded in 2008 by a world-class team of investment professionals and supported by over 200 domestic and international investors, the firm uses its sector expertise to generate deal flow and drive the value creation work during the post-investment stage. 

Mirae Asset, originally established in Asia in 1997 has since expanded its presence in 12 countries from Australia to Hong Kong to the United States. Its scope of services includes traditional equity & fixed income products, ETF's, and other alternative strategies like hedge funds.