HiFiBiO Therapeutics has completed a $37.5 million series B funding round, with plans to advance its antibody pipeline in oncology and autoimmune research after expanding its leadership team last summer.
The financing was led by Sequoia China and LYFE Capital, with support from the biotech’s previous series A investors, VI Ventures and Nest.Bio Ventures. New investors included Legend Star Capital and Proxima Ventures, HiFiBiO said in its announcement. Both of the company’s laboratories, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hangzhou, China, are located within Nest.Bio’s incubator facilities.
In August 2017, the biotech appointed new members to its management, including President and CEO Liang Schweizer, Ph.D., who previously held management roles in cancer research at Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb. HiFiBiO also named Jeff He, a former executive VP at ChemPartner, as chief operating officer.
Two of the original founders remain in senior positions, with Colin Brenan, Ph.D., continuing to serve as chief commercial officer and former CEO Fred Dom taking on the role of chief financial officer.
The company’s drug discovery platform, CelliGO, looks to develop therapeutic antibodies and immune system modulators through single-B-cell screening, phenotyping and analysis.
“We are very excited about HiFiBiO Therapeutics’ long-term growth trajectory,” said James Zhao, founding partner at LYFE Capital, citing the company’s ability to generate a number of antibodies in diverse tumor types.