YishengBio Raises $130 Million in Series B Funding to Accelerate Pipeline Development and Commercialization

BEIJING, Feb. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- YishengBio Co., Ltd. ("YishengBio", the "Company") announced today the closing of a US$130 million in Series B funding round. The new investment was co-led by Oceanpine and OrbiMed. After completing the Series B funding round, the company's institutional investors include: OrbiMed, Oceanpine, EightRoad, F-Prime Capital, 3W Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Adjuvant Capital, MSA Capital, AIHC, Epiphron Capital, Superstring Capital, Haitong International, etc. This round of funding will strongly support the expansion of the company's R&D center, accelerate our commercialization strategies including the clinical development of multiple vaccine candidates and the construction of biologics production facilities in China and Singapore. CEC Capital was the company's exclusive financial advisor in Series B funding round. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Tian Yuan Law Firm acted as the international legal counsel and legal counsel in China of YishengBio respectively. Sidley Austin LLP acted as the legal counsel of OrbiMed and Adjuvant Capital. Han Kun Law Offices acted as the legal counsel of Oceanpine Capital.

YishengBio is a global, fully integrated biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Beijing. The company is engaged in discovering, developing and commercializing innovative biotherapeutics for cancers and infectious diseases using novel PIKA® immunomodulating technology. YishengBio operates in China, USA, and Singapore with over 500 employees. YishengBio's YSJA™ rabies vaccine is the first alum-free lyophilized rabies vaccine launched in China. The rabies vaccine has been commercialized in China and has served over 16 million patients for post-exposure protection against rabies. The novel PIKA immunomodulating technology platform is a new immunomodulation technology developed by YishengBio. Its proprietary PIKA technology augments both innate and adaptive immune responses through the TLR3, RIG-I and MDA5 pathways. With the PIKA immunomodulating technology platform, YishengBio has developed a series of new immune drugs and innovative vaccine products and has obtained over 60 patents for its PIKA immunomodulating technology across more than 30 countries and regions. Being able to accelerate post-exposure immune protection, PIKA rabies vaccine has the potential to lead in the rabies vaccines market in the future. The product has been cited as a novel vaccine by the World Health Organization and classified as a therapeutic biologics product by the China National Medical Products Administration. The product is planned to enter into its global multi-center Phase III clinical trial. Other products in clinical development include YS-ON-001 for the treatment of advanced solid tumors, YS-HBV-001 for hepatitis B and PIKA YS-SC2-010, a prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine candidate against Covid-19 virus. PIKA YS-HBV-002 for chronic HBV and PIKA YS-ON-002 for solid tumor, among others, are product candidates in preclinical and discovery stages.

"We are very pleased to have the support of healthcare investors in the Series B investment," said David Shao, CEO of YishengBio. "We believe their investments in YishengBio reflects the confidence in our development of novel PIKA® immunomodulating technology, the revenue potential of YSJA™ rabies vaccine, and the market prospectus of our innovative vaccine pipeline. This new round of capital will accelerate the building of our management and R&D teams and will facilitate the growth of our pipeline and construction of production sites both at home and abroad. YishengBio is committed to providing more innovative, safer and more effective vaccines and biologics for doctors and patients all over the world."

Dave Chenn, CEO and Managing Partner of Oceanpine Capital, the lead investor on YishengBio's series B investment, said, "The COVID-19 epidemic has triggered abrupt development in vaccine research around the globe, which has been a focus of our investment in healthcare sector. Specializing in the development of innovative vaccines and therapeutic biologics for infectious diseases and cancer, YishengBio boasts a management team of comprehensive and complementary capabilities in the vaccine industry and commercialization. The YSJA™ rabies vaccine is well received by the market as a quality product and the in-house developed competitive PIKA technology has been applied to the development of a new generation of antiviral vaccines. We are optimistic about the future of YishengBio. Oceanpine is very excited to be the lead investor in the Series B investment to grow and thrive with the company and partners, and to help accelerate YishengBio in becoming a world-leading biopharmaceutical company."

Iris Wang, Managing Director of Orbimed Asia-Pacific, said, "Chinese biotech companies are playing an increasingly significant role in the innovation era of the whole world. As an existing shareholder of YishengBio, we are very glad to support the company's strategy in developing and commercializing innovative vaccines and therapeutic biologics once again and are very confident in the execution capability of the management team."

Xiao Zhang, Managing Director of CEC Capital, said, "We are delighted to support YishengBio's seried B investment. Vaccines and healthcare sectors have long been the focus of global investment and YishengBio is well-sought after company in innovative vaccines and biologics. We recognized the talented management team and strong capability. We look forward to seeing new milestones by YishengBio after this investment."

About YishengBio Co., Ltd.

YishengBio Co., Ltd. is a global, fully integrated biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Beijing. The Company is engaged in discovering, developing and commercializing innovative biotherapeutics for cancers and infectious diseases using the novel PIKA® immunomodulating technology. It developed a PIKA immunomodulating technology platform and a series of preventive and therapeutic biologics targeting Rabies, Hepatitis B, Shingles, influenza, Coronavirus. The company operates in China, USA and Singapore with over 500 employees.

About Oceanpine Capital

Oceanpine Capital is an institutional growth equity investment company, with a perspective of achieving successful growth over the long term. The company invests innovative and disruptive growth companies in both TMT and healthcare sectors, i.e., DeepTech areas, which are the driving force of the future economy in the New Norm. We believe in long term value investing and provide strategic resources and operational support to entrepreneur partners, and therefore foster their further growth.

About OrbiMed

OrbiMed is scouting the globe for innovations that will help ensure humanity lives healthier, longer and more productive lives. It manages over $13 billion across public and private company investments worldwide. The company has been investing globally for over 20 years across the healthcare industry, ranging from biopharmaceuticals to medical devices, diagnostics, and healthcare services. Its investment covers from early-stage private companies to large multinational corporations. Its team has over 80 distinguished scientific, medical, investment and other professionals. Its offices are located in New York, Herzliya, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Shanghai, Mumbai, etc.

About CEC Capital

Founded in 2000, CEC Capital Group is a leading investment bank in China. The company invests on the TMT, consumer and healthcare sectors, which separated into 19 market segment teams.

SOURCE Yisheng Biopharma Co., Ltd.