Shouti Inc. raised $100 million in a series B round led by BVF Partners LP to advance its discovery platform for designing oral medicines and to speed up the development of its candidates. The Shanghai and California-based company has secured a total of $158 million in funding so far.

Hongyun Biotech Co. Ltd. raised ¥100 million (US$15.5 million) in a series B round to move its new generation EGFR inhibitor, RC-01, to the IND stage in China and the U.S. for non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). The plan is to finish the IND filing by the end of this year and start the trial in 2022.

HONG KONG – Splisense Ltd. has closed a $28.5 million series B financing that it said will support pipeline development including its lead antisense oligonucleotide candidate, SPL84-23, for the potential treatment of cystic fibrosis. The Jerusalem-based company, which develops mRNA-altering therapies for CF and other genetic pulmonary diseases, attracted support for the round from Orbimed, Israel Biotech Fund, Biotel Ltd. and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

HONG KONG – Pharmcadd Co. Ltd., a developer of an artificial intelligence (AI) and physics-based drug discovery platform, bagged ₩17.3 billion (US$15.5 million) in its series B funding. This brings the total funds raised since its establishment to $22 million.

HONG KONG – Beijing Stonewise Technology Co. Ltd., a med-tech firm that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid in the discovery of small molecule drugs, closed series B and B+ financing rounds that added $100 million to its pocket. The company intends to use the proceeds to upgrade its AI-enabled drug discovery platform.

Chinese eye disease specialist Arctic Vision Biotechnology Co. Ltd. raised more than $100 million in a series B financing round. The clinical-stage company will use the funds to initiate a phase III trial for its core asset, ARVN-001 (triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension), for uveitic macular edema in China this year.

Eight months after Beijing-based Yisheng Biopharma Co. Ltd. unveiled its recombinant protein vaccine candidate for COVID-19, YS-SC2-010, the company raised $130 million in a series B round to pave way for the vaccine to enter clinical trials in the second quarter of this year, the company’s CEO David Shao told BioWorld.

Shenzhen Xbiome Biotech Co. Ltd., an artificial intelligence (AI)-based microbiome drugmaker, raised more than $20 million in a series B+ round, Xbiome CEO Yan Tan told BioWorld, financing that will help the company launch its phase I trial next year. It has been a year since the drugmaker closed a $14 million series B round. During this period, Tan said Xbiome submitted an IND to the FDA in October for its fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) capsule candidate, a potential treatment for graft-vs.-host disease.