Elixiron Immunotherapeutics, Inc., a privately held company developing therapeutics for cancer, neurological diseases and inflammatory disorders, has announced the closing of a Series A-1 extension financing round, bringing the total Series A-1 raise to $27 million. Proceeds will be used to advance phase 1 trials of two pipeline candidates and take three immuno-oncology assets towards IND applications.
EI-1071 is an orally available, highly potent Colony-Stimulating Factor 1 Receptor inhibitor that is in a phase 1 trial in part thanks to an Alzheimer's Association Part the Cloud-Gates Partnership Grant Program award, with the goal of progressing EI-1071 into an Alzheimer's disease trial. EI-001 is a fully human antibody that neutralizes an immuno-modulatory target of interest in Vitiligo and some other immunological disorders including chronic hepatitis B.
Elixiron was founded in 2017 and is led by Hung-Kai Chen, founder, CEO and chairman of the board. The executive team includes Pandelakis Koni, executive vice president of R&D, formerly director of research at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Carrie Duan, executive vice president of clinical development, who previously had leading roles in clinical development and medical affairs management with AstraZeneca, Bayer, GSK and other multinational companies.
"Elixiron firmly believes in drug innovation based on clinical findings from patients in need of better therapies," said Hung-Kai Chen. Hung-Kai continued, "We use translational medicine to dig deep into the key mechanisms of treatment, from which we propose new strategies to modulate the immune system. This is combined with our innovative technology including the T-action platform that can greatly increase the activity of T cells in tumors, and with our new target discovery efforts using our B cell cloning and other antibody library platforms."
The financing raise was jointly led by Pangu Capital (a new investor) and Taiwania Capital (an existing investor) and was joined by further new investors, including DCI Partners of Daiwa Securities Group, Mega International Commercial Bank, Fubon Financial Holdings and Hong Tai Electric Industrial, as well as other existing investors such as China Development Capital Industrial Bank (CDIB) Capital Group.
Elixiron is a privately-held biotechnology company with operations in San Francisco, Taipei and Shanghai on a mission to develop next-generation immunotherapies for neurodegenerative and immunological disorders, as well as cancer, by tapping into what human clinical findings can teach us for reverse-translational medicine approaches.
Founded in 2007, Pangu Capital invests in early-stage companies in emerging industries. With well-established investment theories and philosophy, Pangu Capital's strategy focuses in Information Technology, Life Science and AI fields with investment of over 4 billion RMB.
Founded in 2017, Taiwania Capital is a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in early-stage companies, with a mission to establish partnerships with companies worldwide and boost Taiwan's economic growth. Launched with $200 million, Fund II invests in startups in pharmaceutical product research and development, gene/cell therapy and medical technology.
