HONG KONG – Start-up antibody-focused Mabspace Biosciences Co. Ltd. has secured $15 million in series A financing with Lilly Asia Ventures to help move two of its cancer candidates into clinical studies and further its antibody pipeline.

The Hong Kong-based therapeutics developer is developing its immune tolerance breaking technology and operates an R&D subsidiary in Mainland China, in Suzhou's Biobay. Lilly Asia Ventures, an early stage biotech investment firm, is the sole investor in the latest financing round.

"The proceeds will be used for three purposes," Xueming Qian, founder, CEO and chairman of Mabspace, told BioWorld Today. "We will work on the clinical trial approvals for two of our leading candidates, both for the treatment of various cancers. Then we'll use the money for recruitment purposes, to acquire more experienced management executives. And we'll also add new antibody candidates to our pipeline."

The two cancer candidates are an immunotherapy drug and a targeted therapy drug. Those two also have the potential to be combined and could complement each other in certain conditions for better treatment results. "We have found them to be very synergetic in preclinical studies," said Qian. "On top of immunotherapy's wide range of application in cancer treatment, the future of these drugs is very bright."

Although Qian refused to disclose the name of the two oncology candidates at this time, there are two possible programs in Mabspace's pipeline. One is MSB-001, a VGEFR2 antibody that targets the microenvironment for the treatment of gastric cancer. Another is MSB-002, a follow-on anti-PDL-1 immunotherapy antibody designed to treat lung cancer and other tumor types with high mutation rate and thus immunogenicity. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 6, 2014.)

In addition to those candidates, Mabspace also plans to further expand its pipeline of antibodies. "We have picked Lilly out of many investors this time because they have experience and insightful views in new drug development," said Qian.

Qian said he thinks the differentiation of Mabspace's products is what grabbed Lilly's attention. And the ample pharmacology data Mabspace provided make the candidates even more promising. But the ability to continuously develop novel candidates is the most important factor.

"Mabspace's unique immune tolerance breaking technology and translational science platform is designed to generate and identify candidate antibodies binding to different epitope on the therapeutic target and displaying differentiated properties relative to benchmark competing antibodies," said Qian. "The platform brings us many different properties than other companies, which also reduces drug development risks."

Mabspace's aim is to discover and develop fast follow-on antibody therapeutics for cancer and first-in-class antibodies for chronic kidney disease. When Mabspace started in 2013, the company had limited funding and Qian was responsible for most of the R&D activities. Two and half years later, he has built a team that stands out among many immunotherapy and oncology drug developers in China.

"I know many other companies are doing the same thing," said Qian. "But very few have the ability to evaluate the efficacy of their own drug candidates; our translational platform allows us to compare our candidates with benchmarks and test all kinds of possible combinations."

"We believe that Mabspace has built a differentiated approach rooted in its unique immune tolerance breaking-based antibody discovery platform and translational science capabilities that position it to bring the next wave of innovation to the field," said Stephen Lin, principal at Lilly Asia Ventures, who is also a board member of Mabspace. "Since the launch of Mabspace three years ago, it has made tremendous progress, including advancing its innovative platform technology as well as the discovery of novel therapies."

Mabspace has so far partnered with leading biopharma companies such as Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. Ltd. and Walvax Biotechnology Co. Ltd.'s MAb arm, Genor Biopharma Co. Ltd.

Mabspace signed a collaborative contract with Hengrui in May to co-develop antibody therapeutics against two targets. Mabspace is responsible for the discovery and selection of humanized lead antibodies, while Hengrui obtains exclusive global rights on the resulting candidates and further develops the selected candidate molecules.

Just a few days after the Hengrui agreement, Mabspace signed up for another partnership for the discovery and selection of fully human lead antibodies with Genor. Genor will also own the exclusive global rights of the candidates generated from that deal and will provide Mabspace up-front R&D funding, regulatory milestones and global sales royalty payments.

"We also have first-in-class kidney disease therapeutic programs, which has higher risks but it's a very important area for us, too," said Qian. "There are undisclosed candidates that we are looking to collaborate with global leaders for licensing deals."