[First] Lanma Medical received tens of millions of dollars in Pre-A round financing, adding another strong returnee team to the domestic TILs track
[First] Lanma Medical received tens of millions of dollars in Pre-A round financing, adding another strong returnee team to the domestic TILs track
(Summary description)(hereinafter referred to as "Blue Horse Medical" or "Blue Horse"), a biologically innovative pharmaceutical company, has recently received a multi-million dollar Pre-A round of financing co-led by Boyuan Capital and IDG Capital and followed by Suzhou High-Tech Venture Capital. Pre-A round of financing. The company said that the funding will be used mainly for the process development of TILs for solid malignancies and IND filing of TILs for multiple solid tumor types.
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(hereinafter referred to as "Lanma Medical" or "Lanma"), a biologically innovative pharmaceutical company, has recently received a multi-million dollar Pre-A round of financing co-led by Boyuan Capital and IDG Capital and followed by Suzhou High-Tech Venture Capital. Pre-A round of financing. The company said that the funding will be used mainly for the process development of TILs for solid malignancies and IND filing of TILs for multiple solid tumor types.
Founded in December 2020, Lanma Medical is focused on developing cellular immunotherapy products with TILs therapies as the core, thus providing new options and treatment solutions to a wide range of patients.
According to Artery New Medicine, Lanma Medical was incubated by Huagai Medical Early Stage Fund in mid-2021, and another round of financing was secured at the end of 2021. So, how did this company quickly win the favor of the industry's best capital in a short period of time? And who is the team behind it? Will this company become another dark horse in the TIL circuit?
The future is promising, TILs therapeutic products will bring new light to the majority of solid tumor patients
TIL (Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte, TIL) is a group of cells that are invaded into tumor tissues by lymphocytes of the body and play a role in recognizing, resisting and attacking the tumor.The mechanism of action of TIL is to kill tumor cells directly by releasing cytotoxins. In addition, TIL can also regulate the body's immune function and improve the body's ability to kill tumor cells.
Compared with CAR-T cell therapy, TILs therapy is not only superior in safety, but also can effectively attack solid tumors. Currently, TILs therapies have been conducted globally in clinical trials for a variety of solid tumors, including metastatic melanoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, bile duct cancer, recurrent or refractory ovarian cancer, osteosarcoma, cervical cancer, ovarian cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, glioma, and pleural mesothelioma.
On August 12, 2021, a heavyweight study on TILs therapy caused a huge stir and was featured in the top journal Nature. The study showed that patients with clinically extremely difficult-to-treat advanced lung cancer that did not respond to PD-1 therapy were actually able to achieve long-term remission in some NSCLC patients who did not respond to PD-1 inhibitors after treatment with TILs as a cellular therapy. More excitingly, two patients in this proof-of-concept clinical trial had complete tumor disappearance and sustained remission for more than a year and a half.
As TILs therapy demonstrates excellent efficacy in a growing number of solid tumors, this therapy will bring light to a wide range of patients.
The core technical team is from the original TIL faction in the United States, and has been working in the field of TIL for nearly 20 years
Since TILs were discovered by Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg's team in the 1980s to inhibit the metastasis of malignant melanoma cells in patients, TILs therapies have undergone more than 30 years of development to date.
Currently, the United States is at the forefront of research in TILs therapy. The most prestigious and powerful research institutions in the United States include the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg works, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The founding team of Lanma Medical has been working in the TIL field for many years, and two of them have long experience in the TIL laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center, focusing on product development and process optimization of TILs therapies. At the same time, the founding team has rich experience in the TIL industry, having been responsible for the development of the relevant product pipeline at the largest TIL company in the U.S., and participated in the completion of the corresponding product filing with the U.S. FDA. From research to industry, the founding team has accumulated nearly 20 years of experience in product manufacturing, optimization and team management in the field of TILs therapeutics.
Our CSO, Dr. Feng Li, started his PhD studies at MD Anderson Cancer Research Center in 2012 with a focus on optimization of TIL technology approaches and development of new tumor antigen targets. Later, Dr. Feng Li went to the Huffington Center Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine to conduct postdoctoral related research and returned to MD Anderson Cancer Research Center TIL Lab (Melanoma Medical Oncology Research Division) in 2020 to continue his research on optimization and development of TILs therapeutics. It is reported that Dr. Li has participated in NSF, NIH, NCI, Texas Cancer Institute grant, and Andersen Foundation grant, etc. He is a review editor of more than ten SCI journals; he has published 24 SCI cumulative articles on tumor immunology research.
In the course of long-term research on TILs therapy, the founding team has personally perceived the amazing efficacy of TILs therapy for tumor patients. Therefore, it has been the long-cherished wish of the founders to bring the cutting-edge technology back to China, so that domestic patients can also enjoy more advanced cancer treatment solutions at the first time. The thriving vitality of the domestic biopharmaceutical industry and the increasingly open and mature capital market provide them with the opportunity to realize their long-cherished dream.
"At present, in Western countries, the technology of TILs therapy is mature and the clinical efficacy is remarkable, the success rate of TILs isolation and culture has reached 95%, and the clinical trial data has been reported. However, in China, the clinical application and basic research of TILs therapy in malignant tumor treatment are still in the initial stage. Lanma Medical was founded with the intention of making a solid and effective anti-tumor drug for TILs". said Dr. Steven Dai, CEO of the company.
As CEO of the company, Dr. Steven Dai is not only responsible for the overall operation and management of the company, but also forms the core technical backbone of the company together with CSO Dr. Feng Li, who is responsible for the process development of TILs therapeutics and the development of the product pipeline research strategy.
Dr. Richard, the other co-founder of Lanma Medical, has worked in a tertiary care hospital in China. His rich clinical experience and the rich clinical and industry resources he has accumulated during his career development will provide a great convenience for Lanma to conduct clinical research on its products in China in the future.
In addition to the development potential of the track itself, the most core factor is the people. The strength of the team often determines the height of a company's development. The excellent team behind Lanma is an important factor for capital to favor this company.
The company's unique product process formation, Suzhou GMP plant has completed acceptance
The core of TILs therapy is T-cell proliferation technology, which has high requirements on cell expansion speed, expansion quantity, and cell quality, and the clinical effects vary greatly under different processes.
In terms of drug safety, TILs are very different from other cell-based drugs such as LAK, DC, CIK, DC-CIK, CAR-T, TCR-T, NK, CAR-NK and other cell therapy technologies, because TILs cells are derived from tumor tissues, and there may be the possibility of tissues carrying bacteria or even viruses, so if reasonable and effective pre-treatment is not carried out, there will be the risk of contamination of products and production equipment, thus putting forward higher requirements for each process.
"Lanma Medical product LM103 Injection (TILs) adopts the latest development process, which has more obvious advantages over similar products in terms of cell number (>1X1010) and cell viability (>90%) and expansion speed." Dr. Feng Li introduced to Artery New Medicine that during the R&D process, Landmark Medical has completed the development and establishment of the core process and completed the import substitution of some imported raw materials and reagents.
In the future, Landmark Medical will introduce more overseas scientists to join the company to enrich the product pipeline; the main R&D directions are genetic modification of TIL cells to improve the efficacy of TILs treatment, the integrated treatment mode of TILs treatment combined with other immunotherapy, targeted therapy or radiotherapy, and the development of new gene carriers to transport specific T cells to tumors, etc.
"At present, Landmark Medical has already established initial communication and cooperation with a number of hospitals at home and abroad, aiming to give full play to the company's leading technology advantage and attract a large number of overseas talents to join to quickly achieve the progress of the product milestones." Richard said.
In addition, Lanma Medical's Suzhou GMP facility has now completed acceptance and plans to have its own innovative drug (LM103 injection, TILs) available for patients with malignancies enrolled in the study in 2022.
"In China, the elderly population aged 65 and above reaches 190 million, accounting for 13.5% of the total population; the percentage will exceed 14% for the first time in 2021, and the aging population brings challenges to oncology diagnosis and treatment. in 2020, more than 4 million patients with solid tumors will be diagnosed in China. Patients with advanced metastatic tumors have no effective treatment, poor quality of life, poor prognosis, and short overall survival. Therefore, the development of an immunotherapy that can treat advanced metastatic solid tumors is the focus and difficulty of current tumor treatment. Landmark Medical will bring overseas high precision research talents to develop a tumor immunotherapy with Chinese characteristics-LM103 injection, which will bring new hope for survival to patients with advanced tumors." Dr. Steven Dai said.
With the support of this Pre-A round of financing, Lanma Medical is confident that it will grow at a faster pace.
Investors say
We continue to be bullish on innovative technology platforms in various cellular immunotherapy areas," said Wing Zhang, Managing Partner of Huagai Medical Early Stage Fund. For those entrepreneurial teams in the innovation track with forward-looking development ideas and rich industrial experience, we are more than willing to work with them to build a rich medical industry ecosystem. The Blue Horse Medical startup team is very experienced in TILs technology and familiar with the overall technical aspects from lab to factory, and is a very good star team. We were fortunate to have early contact with them and to be deeply involved in the process of Blue Horse's founding. We believe Blue Horse Medical can advance ahead in the TILs track for the benefit of the majority of oncology patients in China."
Qinggang Zhuang, Executive Director of Boyuan Capital, said, "TILs is one of the most promising platform technologies currently used for solid tumor treatment. TILs therapies have demonstrated very good clinical benefits in several cancer types, including melanoma, cervical cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, and head and neck cancer. It is well known that the therapy is extremely demanding on CMC given the complexity of TILs themselves. The two technical founders of Blue Horse have many years of experience in both scientific and industrialization aspects. Also, complemented by strong clinical resources in China, we are very optimistic about the future development of Blue Horse and believe that TILs therapies can bring more treatment options for many solid tumor patients in China."
Zixuan Pang, Investment Director of IDG Capital, said, "IDG Capital is long-term bullish on the application of innovative tumor cell therapies. The founding team of Blue Horse Medical has more than a decade of senior experience in the TIL field, combining scientific research reserves, industrial experience and clinical execution, and has multiple pipelines advancing at high speed. as co-leaders of this round, IDG Capital will continue to support Blue Horse Medical in addressing the urgent medical needs of oncology patients."
Miao Lu, Managing Partner of Sunsun, a new venture capital firm in Suzhou, said, "With the successive NMPA approval of two CAR-T products in hematological tumor treatment, anti-tumor cellular immunotherapy has opened the door to commercialization in China. Unlike hematologic tumors, the tumor microenvironment of solid tumor patients is highly heterogeneous and conventional cellular immunotherapy is ineffective, while TILs have natural advantages in these areas and positive efficacy has been observed in several overseas clinical trials for solid tumors. The founding team of Blue Horse Medical has a strong industrial background and rich clinical experience in the field related to TILs therapies, and we believe that with the positive drive of this round of financing, the company's solid tumor cellular immunotherapy products will enter clinical application as soon as possible for the benefit of domestic patients with advanced solid tumors."
