HONG KONG – A Chinese biopharmaceutical company with a newly built facility in Suzhou Industrial Park has completed a series C financing of almost $100 million. The funds will help the company develop and manufacture complex and high-end biologics, including biosimilars.

Innovent Biologics Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, raised ¥600 million (US$97 million) led by new investor Legend Capital. Innovent also welcomed other new investors, including Singapore-based Temasek and two more undisclosed backers.

"Most of the proceeds will still be spent on product development and product pipeline," Michael Yu, co-founder, president and CEO of Innovent, told BioWorld Asia. "But the difference is, now that we have built a large manufacturing facility, a portion of the funds will be used for the operation of that facility."

Developed with the help of Biobay – which is providing the land for the facility rent-free for five years on a 20-year lease – and Suzhou Industrial Park, Innovent's state-of-the-art R&D and manufacturing facilities are among the few in China that comply with international requirements for cGMP. Biobay is a leading Chinese biomedicine industrial park founded by the Suzhou government in cooperation with Singapore.

The new facility will be the largest biologics production facility in China designed to comply with international quality requirements. It already houses two 1,000-liter bioreactors and will have six more able to produce 15,000 liters each upon completion.

"First phase [of the facility building] is completed; now we're working on the second phase," said Yu. "The outer construction of the facility is finished, but in terms of production lines, we take a stepwise approach: We have two lines now but are going to add more."

Innovent's team members were involved in the launch of products such as Bexxar (tositumomab), Humira (adalimumab) and Natrecor (nesiritide). Yu said that experienced team is also a major attraction to the company's investors. He said part of the proceeds of the series C financing would be spent recruiting more talent.

"Additionally, we will continue to build our team," said Yu. "We have about 180 people now and plan to have a team of 220 by 2015."

Innovent's current pipeline consists of 10 antibody products, including six novel complex biologics and four biosimilars. IBI301, a biosimilar of rituximab, received approval from the CFDA and is in a phase I trial.

IBI301 is a monoclonal antibody (MAb) against CD20 on the surface of B cells for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. The market size of the drug could be as much as ¥1.4 billion.

The company has also filed investigational new drug applications for four of the other products in seven indications, including a biosimilar of adalimumab,.

"There was no regulations for biosimilars before the release of the draft guideline," said Yu, speaking of the first China draft guideline for biosimilar products released at the end of 2014. "Ninety-nine percent of the biosimilars in China were copies, not real biosimilars that have high similarity to the original molecule.

"So the approval pathway for these biosmilars is through new drug application," Yu added." And the quality of these biologics is not really appealing.

"The guideline will not only have an impact on the development part of biosimilar drugs but also change the landscape of the sector in terms of quality," he said.

The third round of financing also comes from follow-on investors, including Fidelity Biosciences, Fidelity Growth Partners Asia, Lilly Asia Ventures and Frontline Bioventures. The company raised $25 million in its series B financing in 2012, one year after it was founded.

"We believe Innovent is inimitably positioned to both successfully develop its own internal pipeline of biologic compounds," said Darren Cai, executive director of Legend Capital, as well as "with its extensive manufacturing capabilities and relationship with the Chinese government, offer partners a cost-efficient option for developing and selling biologic drugs in China and other markets."

Innovent is a start-up company founded by industry veteran Yu, who invented Conbrecept, China's first novel MAb for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration. (See BioWorld Asia, Dec. 18, 2013.)

Three years after its establishment, the company's operational funding had grown to nearly $45 million in 2014.

"A future [initial public offering] will be one of the options," Yu said. "The current proceeds allow the company to continue with our operation. Later, we'll evaluate the options we have – whether to raise another round of financing or going public."