NEW YORK – Genome editing company EdiGene said on Wednesday that it has raised RMB 400 million ($62 million) in a Series B Plus financing round.
Loyal Valley Capital led the round, which also included new investors BioTrack Capital and Sherpa Healthcare Partners and existing investors IDG Capital, Lilly Asia Venture, 3H Health Investment, Huagai Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Alwin Capital, and Kunlun Capital. The company plans to use the proceeds to advance its pipeline of genome editing technologies into clinics and to scale up its business operations.
EdiGene said it had also raised RMB 450 million in a Series B round in October 2020 and had raised $10 million in a previous Series B Plus round in February 2019.
EdiGene, which was founded in 2015, is headquartered in Beijing, with offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai, as well as Cambridge, Massachusetts. The biotech company develops genome editing technologies to accelerate drug discovery and develop novel therapeutics for a broad range of genetic diseases and cancers. These technologies include ex vivo genome-editing platforms for hematopoietic stem cells and T cells, an in vivo therapeutic platform based on RNA base editing, and a high-throughput genome-editing screening platform for the discovery of novel targeted therapies.
"The company is speeding up portfolio advancement and scaling up business footprints. Adding to our existing Beijing R&D center and Guangzhou Clinical Application Center, we have opened our clinical development office in Beijing, business development office in Shanghai, and launched a R&D center in Cambridge, Massachusetts," EdiGene CEO Dong Wei said in a statement. "The round enables us to continue our efforts in translating gene-editing technologies into therapeutics and further grow the company in terms of scale, global competitiveness, and business development."