MabSpace Biosciences Co., Ltd., a company focused on the discovery and development of antibody-based therapeutics with proprietary immune tolerance breaking technology, today announced the completion of a $15 million Series A financing, which will be used to advance MabSpace’s pipeline of therapeutic antibody programs into clinical studies, and enable expanded discovery of novel antibodies aimed at various components of tumor microenvironment to enhance responses of tumors that may be less likely to respond to T cell checkpoint monotherapy.
“We are incredibly pleased to have the support of Lilly Asia Venture and are in a strong position to advance multiple programs toward human clinical proof of concept studies,” said Dr. Xueming Qian,
Founder, Chairman and CEO of MabSpace. “Each of these programs leverages MabSpace’s unique immune tolerance breaking technology and translational science platform, which is designed to generate and identify candidate antibodies binding to different epitope on the therapeutic target and displaying differentiated properties relative to benchmark competing antibodies. We believe this approach will provide us strong intellectual protection as well as opportunities to discover and develop best-in-class therapeutics with durable responses to patients in need of better treatment options.”
“We believe that MabSpace has built a differentiated approach rooted in its unique immune tolerance breaking based antibody discovery platform and translational science capabilities that position it to bring the next wave of innovation to the field,” said Stephen Lin, Principal at Lilly Asia Ventures, the sole investor for this Series A round, and a Board member of MabSpace. “Since the launch of MabSpace three years ago, it has made tremendous progress, including advancing its innovative platform technology as well as the discovery of novel therapies. With its founders’ and senior management team’s experience in antibody therapeutic discovery and development, MabSpace is well positioned to be a leader in the field.”