Israel’s finance ministry has increased the amount of funding high-tech companies with a short runway, including biotechs, can apply for under a fast-track scheme run by independent, publicly funded agency The Israel Innovation Authority, in response to the country’s war against Hamas.
The Guangzhou Sino-Israel Bio-industry Investment Fund (GIBF) has raised more than half of its proposed ¥2 billion (US$313 million) round. “The second fund, GIBF2, will focus on Israeli and European biotechnology companies, which are developing innovative drugs and are in phase II to III clinical trials,” Avner Lushi, the CEO and co-founder of the GIBF, told BioWorld. The Chinese RMB fund is managed by The Guangzhou Elim Biotech Industry Venture Capital Management Company, which is controlled by a group of prominent Israeli professionals.
HONG KONG – Lutris Pharma Ltd., a company taking on the dermal toxicity common to cancer therapy with EGFR inhibitors, has begun testing its lead product, the B-Raf inhibitor LUT-014, in a phase II trial targeting reduction of acne-like lesions associated with the class. Partial results are expected by the end of 2021.
HONG KONG – China’s I-Mab Biopharma Co. Ltd. has entered a strategic partnership with Indonesia’s PT Kalbe Genexine Biologics (KG Bio). Through the deal, KG Bio will receive the right of first negotiation to commercialize two I-Mab-discovered candidates in the ASEAN and MENA regions as well as Sri Lanka.
HONG KONG – South Korean biotech Bioleaders Co. Ltd., headquartered in Yong-in city, Gyeonggi-do, and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, based in Rehovot, recently founded a joint venture in Israel. With the new entity, they will accelerate the R&D of a Weizmann-developed approach targeting p53, a strong tumor suppressor that has proved difficult to drug.
HONG KONG –South Korea's leading biopharmaceutical developer, Celltrion Inc., has launched its early/metastatic breast and gastric cancer biosimilar Herzuma (trastuzumab) in Iraq. It is Herzuma's first foray into the Middle Eastern region.
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