Innovent Biologics of Suzhou plans to raise $422 million in its Hong Kong IPO at a $2 billion valuation, according to multiple media reports (see story). The company, formed in 2011, struck a major $1 billion collaboration with Lilly (NYSE: LLY) in 2015. It has a pipeline of 17 candidates (a combination of novel drugs and biosimilars), nine of them in clinical trials and four in Phase III tests. The underwriters will price the shares on October 23, with trading expected to start October 31.
HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a Boston, Paris and Shanghai company, acquired H-Immune, a French biotech with an in vitro immunization-based fully human antibody generation platform (IVI) (see story). HiFiBiO has developed its own immunotherapy discovery platform based on single-B-cell screening. It said H-Immune would complement its discovery efforts by identifying first-in-class targets for multiple types of immune cells. H-Immune brings with it a pipeline of novel early stage cancer candidates. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
iCell Gene Therapeutics, a New York-Zhongshan biopharma, formed a research partnership for its CD19 CAR-T therapy with LineaRx, a subsidiary of Applied DNA Sciences (Nasdaq: APDN) (see story). LineaRx is developing a non-viral, plasmid-free (NVPF) CAR-T cell manufacturing platform, which it intends to make available to CAR-T developers. The company will transform iCell’s CD-19 candidate into LinCART19, a non-viral, plasmid free anti-CD19 CAR-T drug candidate. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.
Genecast Biotechnology of Beijing acquired exclusive China rights to the Tissue of Origin (TOO) test for difficult-to-identify tumors developed by Cancer Genetics (Nasdaq: CGIX) of New Jersey (see story). TOO, a microarray-based gene expression test, analyzes a tumor’s genomic information to identify its origin, which helps to classify metastatic, poorly differentiated, or undifferentiated cancers. Founded in 2014, Genecast has developed circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) detection technology that provides individualized cancer diagnoses. Last year, the company raised $18 million in a Series B round led by Tshinghua Holdings.
