Temasek, Sequoia China join Chinese biotech startup’s $200m series A round

Chinese biotech startup D3 Bio announced that it has secured US$200 million in a series A financing round from Sequoia Capital China, Matrix Partners China, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Boyu Capital, and Shanghai-based pharmaceutical firm WuXi AppTec.

D3 Bio co-founder and CEO George Chen / Photo credit: D3 Bio

According to a separate filing, WuXi AppTec has agreed to buy 21 million series A-1 shares in a US$21 million deal, which represents around 16.67% of D3 Bio’s issued share capital.

The startup plans to use the new funds to develop its portfolio in oncology and immunology.

D3 Bio was launched by George Chen, who previously worked in multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca. He had also worked as an an investigator at the US National Institutes of Health.

The startup focuses on developing and commercializing precision medicines to improve or replace existing standard-of-care treatments.

Based on insights from clinical development, it identifies new disease targets and delivery methods in immunology and oncology to match patients with therapies to treat their diseases.

With an understanding of relevant cancer biomarkers, therapeutic improvement, and replacement goals during pre-clinical development, D3 Bio said it can make drug discovery and development “as efficient and focused as possible.”

“Our research and development programs in oncology and immunology are designed to address current unmet clinical needs and to provide the structure or ‘backbone’ upon which future drugs can be developed,” Chen said in a statement. “D3 Bio intends to create a robust portfolio comprised of internal core assets that can be leveraged for follow-on development as well as in-licensed early-stage clinical assets.”

Similar local players in the biotech space include RecBio, which recently raised US$226.6 million in a series B round from Sequoia Capital and Temasek’s Vertex Ventures, among others, as well as Everest Medicines, which raised around US$451.6 million in an initial public offering in Hong Kong last month.