Allorion Therapeutics ("Allorion"), a biotech company focusing on next-generation precision medicine for oncology and autoimmune diseases, completed its Series B financing round worth $50 million. Qiming Venture Partners co-led this round following leading Allorion's $40-million Series A financing, committing two consecutive rounds of investments in the company.
The proceeds will be used for the upcoming Phase I/II clinical trials in both China and the US and the identification of clinical candidates for additional programs, the advancement of its established and validated early discovery platform technologies including an allosteric inhibitor screening platform and a platform for discovery of synthetic lethality targets and molecules, as well as the recruitment of world-leading clinical development and business development teams.
Kan Chen, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners, said, "Since its establishment, Allorion has successfully advanced two molecules to the clinical stage and verified the company's allosteric inhibitor and synthetic lethality screening platforms within a short time, which demonstrated excellent execution of the team."
Allorion was founded only two and a half years ago. Team members are seasoned experts from Novartis, Merck, Eli Lilly and other well-known biopharmaceutical companies with rich experience in small molecule drug R&D. The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is composed of professors and clinical KOLs that are internationally renowned in the fields of kinase allosteric inhibitors, chemical biology, and clinical oncology.
Allorion has actively promoted the development of the company in a scientific and comprehensive way. Upholding a science- and data-driven R&D strategy, the company is developing globally competitive drugs to address the unmet needs of patients by leveraging its highly innovative discovery platforms and a strong R&D team. Allorion also promotes commercialization through cooperation with top pharmaceutical companies at home and abroad.
The two molecule drug candidates mentioned by Kan Chen above include ARTS-011, an allosteric inhibitor targeting the TYK2 pseudokinase domain used to treat autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and lupus, with its IND has been filed in China recently. ARTS-021, a highly potent CDK2 isoform selective inhibitor for the treatment of solid tumors such as ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancer, whose IND is to be filed in the US and China shortly and enter clinical study in the US first.
In addition to the validated allosteric inhibitor screening platform and a platform for the discovery of synthetic lethality targets and molecules, the company also owns a proprietary library of nearly 200,000 high-quality small molecule compounds, enabling thorough and efficient screening. The company has identified confirmed hits for multiple projects and advanced them to hit-to-lead and lead optimization stages. Meanwhile, Allorion is leveraging its AI-enabled discovery platform, featuring chemoinformatics- and bioinformatics-based data mining, to increase its discovery efficiency.
Allorion is also exploring cooperation opportunities with international pharmaceutical companies. At the 2023 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Allorion's innovation pipelines were recognized globally.
Commenting on the future development, Allorion's co-founder and CEO Peter Ding pointed out, with the science- and data-driven R&D strategy, the company will continue to fully leverage its team's capabilities, platforms, and funds to advance clinical development and address unmet medical needs for patients.
Kan Chen expressed his confidence in the clinical data, additional high-quality drug candidates generated by the company's technology platforms, and its collaboration with international and Chinese pharma companies, to promote the development of precision medicine and bring more valuable innovations to human health.
