Lilly co-funds China's Innovent in biologics expansion
This article was originally published in Scrip
The regional venture aim of Eli Lilly has come in to participate in a second round of venture capital raised by the Chinese bioventure Innovent Biologics. Innovent is positioning itself as a developer and international supplier of monoclonal antibodies and biosimilars, in a strategy that won the company $30 million in startup capital late last year from investors including Fidelity Growth Partners Asia and the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (Suzhou BioBay), where Innovent is located.
The firm has just locked in another $25 million in capital from two Fidelity funds and Lilly Asia Ventures, the regional investment arm of Eli Lilly, in a Series B funding that it will use to further expand capacity in development and manufacturing.
"It shows our investors have belief in our business and our management team, which guarantees quality and cost-effective research and development. Biologics will be a huge category in the global pharma industry and we aim to become a leading company in this area in China," Innovent CEO Dr Michael Yu told Scrip.
"The Chinese market is very important to us, but eventually we want to market our products worldwide," Dr Yu said. He noted that part of the new funding would be used for acquiring new projects to the pipeline, mainly in the areas of oncology and autoimmune diseases.
"The products we are looking for should be at an early study stage with great potential for us to conduct subsequent development and commercialization in China. This model is less time-consuming and lowers risks," Dr Yu explained, adding that Innovent is actively seeking in-licensing deals for product candidates with multinationals and other firms.
This year, a string of multinationals have visited the firm to discuss possible collaborative deals relating to licensing and contract manufacturing, including Pfizer, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma and Amgen.
At the moment, Innovent has three products in its pipeline: two antibodies for cancer (further details of which have not yet been disclosed) and IBI301, an anti-CD20 antibody for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and other B cell-mediated diseases that is a biosimilar version of Roche's big-selling Mabthera (rituximab).
At BioBay, Innovent currently owns a research facility and pilot plant occupying around 2,400m2 in total. With the new funding, a much bigger campus is now being planned, said Dr Yu, a specialist in molecular genetics and a former vice-president of R&D at Applied Genetics and Calydon (acquired by Cell Genesys) in the US.
The planned 90,000m2 site will include multiple commercial-scale 12,000 liter bioreactors and a pilot plant, as well as two 1,000 liter bioreactors for the production of clinical materials. Innovent claims that it will be the largest biologics production facility in China designed to comply with international current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) as defined by the European Medicines Agency and the US FDA, as well as the cGMP regulations of China's State FDA.
"We expect the new campus to start operations in 2014. It will also allow us to take contract manufacturing orders," Dr Yu said.