News & Events
Guangzhou, China and San Francisco, CA, July 27, 2021- Lupeng Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company, and its fully owned US subsidiary (Newave Pharmaceutical Inc.) that discover and develop innovative small molecule drugs for unmet needs in cancer treatments, today announced the closing of a $35 million pre-B round of financing.
The financing round was led by Temasek, a premier international investment organization, and joined by other investors including Lake Bleu Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), Fontus Capital, and additional strategic investors. Fund will be used for supporting clinical trials of the company's leading drug candidates LP-108 (selective Bcl-2 inhibitor), LP-118, LP-168, LP-128, LP-169, as well as the development of multiple preclinical programs.
Dr. Fenlai Tan, co-founder and chairman of Lupeng, says “The new financing is another important milestone for Lupeng. We are honored to receive the recognition and enthusiastic support from renowned international investors, especially when the capital market has become conservative due to impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As an innovative biopharmaceutical company dedicated to addressing unmet medical needs at the global scale, Lupeng will continue to focus on research and development, with the long-term objective to grow into a well-respected company that fully integrates R&D, manufacturing, and commercialization”.
Dr. Li Bin, founder of Lake Bleu Capital says "We highly appreciate the founding team of Lupeng, their unwavering focus on clinical needs, and their consistent strategy of constructing a unique R&D pipeline independently. Built on their exceptional capability in drug design and strong R&D execution, Lupeng has established an innovative and robust pipeline with balanced and with manageable risk. Leveraging its global clinical development capabilities, Lupeng now has multiple lead drug candidates at different stages of clinical trials in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Lake Bleu Capital is honored to be a shareholder of the company to support and to witness its rapid growth, and we anticipate Dr. Tan and Dr. Chen will continue to lead the team on a mission to providing new pharmaceutical solutions to cancer patients."
Existing partners from Fontus Capital, Kaitai Capital, TF Capital, and Legend Star extended their congratulations to Lupeng regarding this round of successful financing. They also expressed warm welcome to the new investors, who share the same confidence in Lupeng’s bright future in new drug research and development.
About Lupeng
Dr. Fenlai Tan and Dr. Yi Chen co-founded Lupeng in June 2018, at the development Zone of Guangzhou, China. The company specializes in designing and developing new small-molecule anti-tumor drugs, with innovative drug design and efficient clinical development as its core advantages. Lupeng emphasizes on innovation and creativity in the process of drug design, to achieve the goal of differentiation. The company currently has a growing portfolio of more than 10 drug candidates. Among their core programs, LP-108, LP-118 and LP-168 are currently in clinical trials in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and China.
The company has successfully secured multiple rounds of financing from well-known investors. The phase 1 construction of headquarter in Guangzhou, include R&D and manufacturing facilities, has started. The headquarter is planned to open in 2024.
Our investment organization
Temasek Holdings
Temasek is a global investment company with a net portfolio value of S $381 billion (¥1.86 billion RMB) Singapore dollar up to March 31, 2021. Headquartered in Singapore, it has 13 offices in nine countries. The firm charter defines its role as an investor, an institution and a custodian of assets, mould its vision and mission of pursuing excellence, shoulder mission and benefit the society. Temasek provides capital for development and is committed to empowering solutions to meet grand global challenges. Sustainable development is the core of all Temasek's actions. It actively seeks sustainable solutions to overcome current and future challenges, seize investment opportunities and help to build a more sustainable future for the general public.
Lake Bleu Capital
Lake Bleu Capital is a multi-billion dollar asset management platform operating in Hongkong and Shanghai. It specializes in healthcare investing in Asia. The lake Bleu’s secondary market US dollar fund is one of the largest secondary market healthcare fund in Asia, has won multiple awards from industry and authorities such as AsiaHedge. In 2020, the fund was awarded as the only winner of the 2020 AisaHdge “5 Year Award over 500m”. Meanwhile, Lake Bleu Capital also focus on private equity investment in the Chinese healthcare industry, successfully completing multiple investment for nearly 50 flagship innovative companies, to give enterprises in the capital operation and business cooperation escort and provide diversified value-added services.
About Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV)
LAV is a leading life science and medical health venture capital firm, with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Palo Alto. As one of the earliest biomedical professional funds in China, LAV has been invested for China's healthcare industry for more than a decade. The company vision is to become the trusted partner for exceptional entrepreneurs seeking smart capital and to build great companies developing breakthrough products that treat diseases and improve human health.
Fontus Capital
Fontus Capital was founded in 2015, focus on biomedical, life science investments and relevant private equity. The team is from world-class financial services institutions and pharmaceutical industry. Since its inception, based on the rigorous industry insight, unique business resources and the ability to explore cross-border opportunities, Fontus capital has always been committed to discovering medical and pharmaceutical enterprises those improve human health, helping them to develop to the top.
Kaitai Capital
Kaitai capital, founded in 2009, it’s an investment management organization mainly engaged in life science, health industry with a consistent focus on clinical unmet needs. Up to now, has been invested for more 80 companies of these industries. Fields of investment include Tumor, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune, neuroscience, skin disease and other fields. Not only focuses on discovering value, but also providing continuous empowerment for the invested enterprises. In the future, Kaitai Capital will continue to stand together with the investee enterprises, firmly support for their value creation, and contribute to the upgrading of China's life science and big health industry.