Carlyle, Warburg Pincus Co-lead $123M Round In Shanghai Biopharma Firm Abbisko

Carlyle, Warburg Pincus Co-lead 3M Round In Shanghai Biopharma Firm Abbisko

Abbisko Therapeutics, a Shanghai-based biopharmaceutical firm, announced on Friday the completion of a Series D
funding round at $123 million to advance the startup’s clinical programmes and to expand its portfolio in the
discovery and preclinical development stages.

The investment was jointly led by US buyout firm The Carlyle Group, private equity (PE) giant Warburg Pincus, New
York-based healthcare investor OrbiMed, Asia-focused asset management firm Lake Bleu Capital, and an
unspecified Boston-based investor, according to a statement.

Janchor Partners, Sage Partners, SHC, Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund, and another strategic
investor, as well as existing investors including Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), Temasek Holdings, Qiming Venture
Partners, Hankang Capital, and CICC Capital also participated.

The Series D round brings the total capital that Abbisko has raised so far to $263 million. It follows a Series C round
in March 2020, in which Abbisko secured $70 million from lead investor Temasek and a group of existing investors.

Abbisko’s Series D round comes at a time when the number of new biopharma companies in China has risen
steadily over the past three decades, while company formation declined in other major markets such as the US,
Europe, and Japan. According to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), more than 140 new biotech firms emerged in the world’s second-largest biopharma market between 2010 and 2020, driven by the country’s aging demographic and
pent-up domestic demand.

Founded in April 2016, Abbisko is an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery
and development of innovative medicines.

The firm has developed an extensive small molecule pipeline in oncology targeted therapy and immune-oncology
areas. Among them, four programmes have advanced into the clinical stage with seven investigational new drug
(IND) approvals already obtained in different regions of the world.

It has also established a number of collaborations with other pharmaceutical companies, such as UK-based drug
maker AstraZeneca and Nasdaq-listed, late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical firm X4 Pharmaceuticals, to strengthen
its portfolio and R&D globally.

“We are deeply impressed by Abbisko’s deep bench of talent in the small molecule oncology field,” Fred Hassan, a
current board member of Amgen and former chairman & CEO of Schering Plough, commented on behalf of Warburg
Pincus in a statement. He said that Warburg Pincus will leverage its network to help the Chinese firm accelerate
global partnership and global clinical development.

The new financing will be used to accelerate the firm’s clinical programmes and to further expand its preclinical
pipeline consisting of multiple programmes in discovery to Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling stages.

Abbisko raised $42 million in a Series B round led by Qiming in March 2019. Its $28 million Series A round was led
by LAV and completed in February 2017.

Its early backers also include Sinopharm Capital, an equity investment platform of state-owned China National
Pharmaceutical Group; healthcare-focused venture capital (VC) firm Jianxin Capital; life sciences investor TF Capital;
and CICC Capital, a private equity fund management platform of Chinese investment bank CICC.

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