Apexigen, a Burlingame, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company, closed $20m a Series A1 financing.
The round was led by Amkey Ventures, with participation from WSR Capital, China Development Industrial Bank, Themes Investment Partners and Sycamore Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Dr. George J. Lee, a general partner at Amkey Ventures, joined Apexigen’s board of directors.
The company intends to use the funds to advance the development of APX005, an immunotherapeutic for the treatment of cancers, and to support the development of additional pipeline programs.
Founded in 2010 and led by Xiaodong Yang, MD, PhD, President & CEO, Apexigen is a biopharmaceutical product development company advancing a pipeline of humanized antibodies, targeting diseases such as cancer, inflammatory diseases and ophthalmic disease.
APX005 is a CD40 agonist that can stimulate anti-tumor immune responses by binding to CD40 molecules on the antigen presenting cells and activating immune co-stimulatory pathways to boost tumor-specific immunity. Furthermore, it can also trigger direct tumor killing.
FinSMEs
08/08/2013