Hangzhou Adcoris Biopharmacy Co., Ltd

MPM BioImpact, a leading biotech investor, is going all in on its strategy to take China-born drugs to the global stage. Over the past year, its portfolio company K2 Therapeutics has amassed three drug programs spanning antibody-drug conjugates and T cell engagers — two popular oncology treatment modalities central to many of the East-to-West licensing deals that have taken the industry by storm. K2’s latest deal came last week, in an up to $730 million biobucks package for a 5T4-targeted ADC out of Adcoris. Hangzhou-based Adcoris was founded in 2021 and has brought treatment candidates, including a HER2 ADC, into the clinic. The 5T4-focused deal was disclosed on WeChat. Multiple biotech VC firms have latched onto the NewCo strategy, in which they invest in new biotechs that are set up around assets in-licensed from Chinese drug developers. Forbion, RA Capital, Novo Holdings, OrbiMed and many others have taken part in some of the nearly 20 such companies since the beginning of 2025. MPM is taking a slightly different twist to the model. Around the end of 2024, the four-decade-old firm set up K2 in Singapore. The team there scours potential best-in-class medicines in China. K2 is amalgamating the ex-China rights to medicines that already have early clinical data in their native country. The goal is to then test them further in Western countries and manufacture them outside of China. “We want to basically combine the best of both worlds,” Ansbert Gadicke, managing partner at MPM BioImpact and executive chair of K2, told Endpoints News in an interview. He said they want to be “synergistic or complementary rather than” make drug development between the regions “purely competitive.” The firm chose Singapore because it’s relatively easy for US companies to do business there, with a similar legal system and corporate governance structure, he said. Plus, it’s in the same time zone as China. “Whenever we see an interesting protein therapeutics project in the US, there’s a sense that there may be 10 or more competitors coming out of China,” MPM BioImpact managing partner Christiana Bardon said in a separate interview. “Many times the Chinese assets are working in new targets that the US may not even be approaching yet. And because the new targets are higher-risk, they convince us with clinical data, which they can access easily.” To guide its strategy, K2 has brought on former Orna Therapeutics chief medical officer Frank Neumann as its CMO. Lilly recently bought MPM-backed Orna and its in vivo CAR-T work for up to $2.4 billion. K2 has also enlisted former Bristol Myers Squibb medical chief Samit Hirawat as an advisor, Gadicke said. He also recently became a medical advisor to European biotech investor Jeito Capital. Many of MPM’s investment peers have followed a one-off strategy, in which they back separate NewCos with one or more assets. K2, meanwhile, is looking to build a broad portfolio under one roof, with an ambition of at least half a dozen programs, Gadicke said. Each asset is placed into a K2 subsidiary so that the Chinese company can get an equity stake in that new company, and it will be more favorable for potential M&A exits, the MPM leader said. Pharma companies might be interested in an asset or two, but likely not the entire K2 portfolio. MPM is pumping more than $60 million into K2 as part of its “outsized” investment strategy. Its “regular” investments are typically $20 million to $60 million per portfolio company, he said. Oncology will be a key area, but K2 is interested in other large disease areas with major clinical needs, Gadicke said. Beyond ADCs and TCEs, K2 is interested in RNA therapies. RNAi and siRNAs have been the focus of other China-to-West pacts in recent quarters. Gadicke believes MPM will be an attractive partner for Chinese biotechs given its track record of FDA approvals. The firm’s portfolio companies have secured 60 drug approvals, he said. “If a Chinese partner compares working with a regular US biotech company or investment firm versus us, they probably should feel safe that they have the best shot at successful drug development by going with us,” Gadicke said. The firm can go earlier than pharmaceutical giants are willing to go, Gadicke said, with fewer “data demands.” Recognizing the speed and quality of work coming out of China, many of the large pharma players have lined up multiple deals in the region in recent years. “There may be a very large pharma deal later on that we would then do jointly,” Gadicke said. If its name is any suggestion, the road ahead might be a hard — but immensely rewarding — trek. K2 is the second-tallest summit in the world, on the border between China and Pakistan. Other companies have held the K2 name before, including what became Cidara Therapeutics . Merck recently acquired the antiviral biotech for $9.2 billion.

Callio Therapeutics\' oncology platform has been licensed from Singapore’s Hummingbird Bioscience, which shares both a CEO with Callio and a number of the same financial backers.\n Frazier Life Sciences has launched Callio Therapeutics with $187 million in series A funds and a HER2-targeted dual-payload antibody-drug conjugate that’s ready for the clinic.The ADC, and Callio’s wider oncology platform, have been licensed from Singapore’s Hummingbird Bioscience, which shares both a CEO with Callio and a number of the same financial backers, including Frazier. Callio didn’t divulge the financial details of that licensing agreement, only confirming it involved “equity, potential milestone payments and royalties.”As well as launching Callio, Frazier led the series A round, which also included the likes of Jeito Capital, Novo Holdings, Omega Funds, ClavystBio, Platanus, Norwest, Pureos Bioventures, SEEDS Capital and EDBI.Callio, which is headquartered in both Seattle and Singapore, is now focused on so-called “multi-payload” ADCs, meaning they can deliver multiple agents to tumor cells for maximum therapeutic benefit. As well as Hummingbird, other biotechs exploring the potential of dual payload ADCs include Adcoris, Sutro and CrossBridge. “The multi-payload ADCs being developed at Callio Therapeutics have the potential to address large unmet medical needs by overcoming many of the limitations of existing ADCs,” said Adam Simpson, a venture partner at Frazier who is also the executive board chair of Callio.“With the expertise of the Callio Therapeutics team, together with access to the innovative multi-payload ADC technology, we believe that Callio Therapeutics will be the first company to show the clinical benefit of this exciting new multi-payload ADC approach and is well positioned to transform cancer therapy,” Simpson added.Top priority for the series A funds is to get that HER2-targeted dual-payload ADC into the clinic for a proof-of-concept study. Further back in development, Callio also has an undisclosed ADC program in the works.“Multi-payload ADCs have the potential to enable the targeted delivery of rational drug combinations to cancer cells, and may provide significantly enhanced efficacy,” Callio’s co-founder and CEO Piers Ingram, Ph.D., said in a March 3 release.“This new generation of ADC therapies may meaningfully improve outcomes for patients,” added Ingram, who is also CEO of Hummingbird.Ingram will now be dedicating “the majority of his time to Callio,” according to a Callio spokesperson, who emphasized that the two biotechs are independently operated with different people overseeing their respective clinical development strategies.