Thursday, 28 March 2024


Lion TCR raises $20 million in a Series A funding round

29 May 2018 | News

It will use this fund to advance its ongoing clinical trials of lead candidate LioCyx, a personalized HBV specific TCR T cell therapy against Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in major hospitals in China and Singapore, it said in an announcement.

Source: Pixabay

Source: Pixabay

Lion TCR, a Singapore-based clinical stage biotech firm has raised $ 20 million in a Series A funding round from new investors Yashang Capital and US-based early stage investor Westlake Ventures Capital apart from the existing investors.

Lion TCR is a company focused on the development of T-cell receptor (TCR)-T cell therapy against life threatening viral infections and viral-related cancers present in Asia.

It will use this fund to advance its ongoing clinical trials of lead candidate LioCyx, a personalized HBV specific TCR T cell therapy against Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in major hospitals in China and Singapore, it said in an announcement, reported Deal Street Asia.

HCC is the most common type of primary liver cancer in adults and is the most common cause of death in people with cirrhosis. HCC has over 700,000 new cases every year, the world’s second deadly cancer of which 80 per cent are found in Asia Pacific and 50 per cent in China.

Initial clinical trials of LioCyx for late stage HCC have produced encouraging results of good efficacy and safety profile. The funds will also be used for broadening its products pipeline to fight viral-related solid tumours and clearance of chronic hepatitis B, the company added.

The company is targeting a market where over one fifth of cancers in Asia are related to infection, primary viral infection. For instances, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is 100 per cent related to EBV infection and over 90 per cent of HCC is related to HBV infection in China.

LioCyx, developed by Lion TCR’s scientific founder, Prof. Antonio Bertoletti with the team and its collaborators in Singapore General Hospital winning the 2018 SingHealth Duke-NUS Research Award 1st Prize and the Best Abstract in EASL International Liver Congress 2018.

“It will allow us to accelerate the completion of Phase 1/2a clinical trial of LioCyx to treat relapsed HCC case post-liver transplantation and expand the therapy clinical trials for other indications of HCC,” said Victor Li, founder and CEO of Lion TCR.

The biotech company claims to be the world’s first to develop HBV-specific TCR T cell therapy against HCC.

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