Sanegene Bio (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

Just a month after announcing a deal with Eli Lilly to work on RNAi drugs for metabolic diseases, SanegeneBio has disclosed a $110 million Series B round to fund its work. Like a growing number of startups, Sanegene has split its operations between the US and China, with R&D in the Boston area, drug discovery work in Suzhou, China, and a clinical operations center in Shanghai. It currently has about 85 employees. Its deal with Lilly could be worth as much as $1.2 billion . The new round, which was backed by Lilly as well as Sino Biopharm, Invus, Qiming Venture Partners and more than 10 additional investors, adds to the $150 million the company has already raised, Marc Abrams, chief technology officer and head of US operations, told Endpoints News . Along with four different obesity programs in preclinical work, the biotech is in Phase 2 testing with SGB-9768, a C3-targeted RNAi candidate for various autoimmune conditions. That includes IgA nephropathy, C3 glomerulopathy and IC-MPGN, or immune complex-mediated membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis. The Series B will help Sanegene get SGB-9768, which has FDA orphan drug designation , into global Phase 3 testing, Abrams said. “The key thing that we think about every day is how to improve upon where the field is now, what the state of the art is now in terms of tissue selectivity, in terms of potency in extrahepatic tissues,” Abrams said. “We’re really happy with where we are from a differentiation perspective in that increasingly crowded space” of RNAi. The company was founded by former Dicerna Pharmaceuticals leaders, including CEO Weimin Wang and chief scientific officer Shiyu Wang. Novo Nordisk bought Dicerna, which also worked in RNAi, for $3.3 billion in 2021 . The biotech is preparing to commercialize SGB-9768 on its own, but could look to partner assets in larger indications such as dyslipidemia, Abrams said. “As we grow, we’re going to build more capabilities so we can run larger clinical trials for our own pipeline as well,” Abrams said. Another autoimmune candidate, called SGB-3383, is in Phase 1 in China, and it has a clinical-stage siRNA candidate for hypertension, called SGB-3908/IBI3016, that’s partnered with China’s Innovent Biologics. In obesity, the biotech is working on genetically validated targets and first-in-class programs, Abrams said. It has an RNAi drug targeting INHBE that should enter the clinic by early next year, Abrams said. The Phase 1 will be outside the US, he said, so they “can move very quickly.” Called SGB-7342, the drug candidate could gain more attention from pharma companies after Wave Life Sciences announced promising early data for a similar drug. Wave’s stock price $WVE more than doubled on the Phase 1 data and it plans to sell $250 million in stock to investors. “Seeing the data yesterday from Wave lifts up the whole field, and now with that degree of human validation, we think the prospects are quite strong for this program,” Abrams said. Editor’s note: This story has been correct the location of the company’s operations, remove an incorrect description of a target of one of the company’s drugs, and to edit the description of the founding team.

SanegeneBio, an RNAi therapeutics developer with offices in Boston and Shanghai, raised a $110-million series B on Tuesday. The funding will help push some of its liver disease and cardiometabolic programmes into registrational studies. The megaround was backed by a host of investors, including Sino Biopharm, Legend Capital, Vivo Capital, Invus, SymBiosis, Guofa Capital, TruMed, Lake Bleu Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, K2 Venture Partners, TF Capital, Oriza Holdings and Northern Light Venture Capital.SanegeneBio also received a strategic investment from Eli Lilly; last month, the pair signed a global research and licensing agreement to leverage the biotech's Ligand and Enhancer Assisted Delivery (LEAD) platform to develop RNAi candidates for metabolic diseases.  The company's LEAD technology utilises tailored enhancers and linkers to enable tissue-selective RNAi delivery. Under the deal, SanegeneBio is in charge of discovering and optimising LEAD-based RNAis for each programme, while Lilly is responsible for IND-enabling studies, clinical development and commercialisation. Internally, SanegeneBio's lead candidate is SGB-9768, a C3-targeting RNAi in Phase II testing for IgA nephropathy, C3 glomerulopathy and immune complex-mediated membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis.Its most-advanced cardiometabolic programme is SGB-3908, an RNAi directed against AGT in development for hypertension. The biotech reported Phase I results at the American Heart Association (AHA) meeting last month, which showed initial blood pressure–lowering effects. Innovent holds Chinese rights to the asset. SanegeneBio is also developing SGB-7342, an obesity RNAi candidate against INHBE — the same target as Wave Life Sciences' experimental siRNA. The Wave's shares more than doubled on Monday after it reported Phase I findings demonstrating that WVE-007 can aid fat loss, whilst retaining lean muscle mass.  SGB-7342 is still in preclinical testing, though it may soon advance to in-human testing. In addition to advancing its clinical programmes, Tuesday's fundraise will also help SanegeneBio "bring more transformative programs into the clinic leveraging our LEAD platform," CEO Weimin Wang said in a company release.

Pfizer's first wave of PD-1xVEGF trials, Akeso's first overall survival win from ivonescimab and more deals from Eli Lilly made our news this week. Pfizer is launching the first clinical trials for its PD-1xVEGF drug, while Akeso detailed the first overall survival win for its first-in-class ivonescimab. Eli Lilly signed two more drug discovery pacts, continuing a dealmaking spree. And more.1. With Summit leading the pack in PD-1xVEGF bispecifics, Pfizer lays out its own plan to replace KeytrudaPfizer unveiled the first clinical trials for its PD-1xVEGF bispecific licensed from China’s 3SBio. One of the first two phase 3 trials is a head-to-head study against Keytruda in the two drugs’ respective combinations with chemotherapy in patients with first-line non-small cell lung cancer. A phase 1/2 will combine the drug, coded PF-08634404, with Pfizer’s antibody-drug conjugates.2. Akeso details ivonescimab's 1st overall survival win. Should Summit celebrate?Akeso provided detailed results for ivonescimab’s first positive overall survival readout, showing that the addition of the PD-1xVEGF drug to chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by 25% in Chinese patients with previously treated EGFR-mutated NSCLC. The OS win marked another validation of the drug class but did not necessarily secure ivonescimab a top spot in this particular indication.3. Eli Lilly pens $1.2B pact with Sanegene to better target metabolic RNA medsLilly continues AI push, inking $100M-plus research pact with InsilicoEli Lilly continued its recent deal spree by inking a research pact worth up to $1.2 billion with Sino-American biotech SanegeneBio focused on cardiometabolic RNA interference medicines and a separate $100 million-plus deal with artificial intelligence drug discovery outfit Insilico Medicine. The Indianapolis pharma had just signed another AI drug design deal with XtalPi last week.4. Neurocrine's depression drug is latest asset from Takeda pact to flunk a phase 2 trialA phase 2 major depressive disorder trial of a candidate Neurocrine Biosciences licensed from Takeda has failed. The drug, a negative allosteric modulator of the NMDA NR2B receptor, failed to beat placebo on change in depression severity by Day 5 as measured on the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale.5. Lyell hands over $70M-plus in cash, equity for 'impressive' phase 1-stage colorectal cancer CAR-TLyell Immunopharma is paying Sino-American firm Innovative Cellular Therapeutics $40 million upfront, plus 1.9 million of its own shares, for ex-China rights to a CAR-T therapy. In an ongoing U.S. study in 12 pretreated colorectal cancer patients, a high dose of the guanylyl cyclase-C-targeted CAR-T has shown a 67% overall response rate and median progression-free survival of 7.8 months.6. Third Arc Bio pens back-loaded $840M pact for Adagene's masking T-cell engager techIn a heavily back-loaded deal, Third Arc Bio is tapping Adagene to develop T-cell engagers against tumor-associated antigens. The pact includes $5 million upfront and up to $840 million in milestones. The Adagene platform involved is designed to activate an antigen when it reaches the tumor microenvironment, improving safety and widening therapeutic index.Other News of Note:7. JSF divests CRO Crown Biosciences for $204M (release, release)8. Recall roundup: Fresenius, Sun and Teva among drugmakers pulling products in recent weeks9. Lundbeck, Otsuka back survey uncovering ‘blind spot’ around Alzheimer’s agitation10. Boryung breaks ground on penicillin plant expansion in South Korea11. China allocates $60M to procure 15.4M bivalent HPV shots for national immunization scheme (Jiemian, Chinese)