Raising capital has always been a challenge for small to medium biotech firms worldwide, but the economic whiplash and the wider downturn across international markets post-pandemic have pushed Chinese biotechs to make-it-or-break-it scenarios for crossing the IPO threshold, speakers at the Chinabio Partnering Forum 2023 said in Shanghai.
CMR Surgical Ltd. raised $165 million in financing from its existing investors that will allow the company to continue to innovate its portable robotic surgery system, Versius, and grow its position in existing and new markets. The latest financing takes CMR’s total capital raised since its founding to over $1 billion. The Versius surgical robotic system is now in over 20 markets and the company has become the second largest soft tissue surgical robotics company globally, after Intuitive Surgical Inc.
Day Zero Diagnostics Inc. added more of the right kind of zeros to its coffers as it closed a $16 million financing round supported by existing investors. Venture capital investment in the diagnostics company to date totals $49 million, with more than $18 million in additional non-dilutive funding. The company is developing a diagnostic that provides same-day identification of an infectious pathogen and its antimicrobial susceptibility profile.
Airna Corp. Inc. has launched through a $30 million financing to develop a pipeline of RNA editing therapeutics for treating rare diseases and prevalent diseases. It’s a wide spectrum of diseases made potentially more easily treatable because of the relatively recent revolution in RNA editing.
Having cast around for other routes, Histogen Inc. is throwing in the towel, its board having adopted a shutdown plan that includes the distribution of remaining cash to stockholders after a wind-down of operations. One of the company’s West Coast peers, Kinnate Biopharma Inc., had news, too. The firm disclosed the layoff of 70% of its workforce, including all employees at the Shanghai-based subsidiary Kinnjiu Biopharma Inc., leaving the outfit with 28 full timers.
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