Clinical-stage immune-oncology therapy developer CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited announced on Monday that it has secured $186 million in a Series C round financing led by Loyal Valley Capital.

The funding includes $30 million in full margin warrant, the statement said.

Existing investor South China Venture Capital participated in the round, while a slew of new investors, including healthcare-focussed Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), Shenzhen Shiyu Investment Management, and Summer Capital, also joined.

With headquarters in Shanghai and an office in Houston, CARsgen conducts clinical researches and trials for autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T and other antibody therapeutics. Its proprietary drug candidates is used for diseases including refractory tumor, hepatocellular carcinoma, squamous lung cancer, and leukemia.

According to its press release on October 23 this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted orphan drug designation to CT041 — a humanized CAR T-cell product to treat patients who suffer from claudin18.2 positive tumors.

“The fundraising will profoundly support the clinical research for our portfolio pipeline candidates in China and US,” said Zhonghai Li, the CEO, CSO and Founder at CARsgen, in the statement, “it will also firmly facilitate our international expansion in Europe and beyond. Now we expect to achieve new drug listing.”

Before the current round funding, CARsgen closed a $60 million Series B exclusively from technology and innovation-based Photon Fund in 2018.

In 2016, it had also garnered an undisclosed amount in a Series A round funding from Kaitai Capital, JIC Capital, and Jolly Pharmaceutical.

Loyal Valley Capital, the lead investor in the latest round, has made several investments in the healthcare sector of late. Loyal Valley had partnered Hillhouse Capital, TPG Asia, and others to pour $145 million in Hong Kong-listed Lee’s Pharmaceutical Holdings’ Zhaoke Ophthalmology Pharmaceutical on October 11.

In August 2020, Loyal Valley led a 1 billion yuan ($145 million) Series C round of financing in biopharmaceutical startup Sinovent.

Loyal Valley has assets under management of $1.6 billion with 53 portfolio companies, including ByteDance, Bilibili, Didi Chuxing, and Tencent’s WeShare.

Contact editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)

Related: In Depth: In Generic Drug Reform, China Walks Tightrope Between Innovation and Affordability