AusperBio, a near-commercial biopharmaceutical company with operations in the US and China, has completed a Series C funding round at $120 million to fund commercialisation preparations and the ongoing Phase III registrational programme for its lead candidate.
An unnamed strategic investor led the Series C round, with participation from Boston-based new investor RA Capital Management and existing shareholders including HanKang Capital, Sherpa Capital, InnoPinnacle Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, YuanBio Venture Capital, and CDH Investments.
The new round brought AusperBio’s fundraising total since 2024 to over $340 million, according to a company statement.
Operating from two offices in Hangzhou, China and California, the US, AusperBio focuses on developing targeted oligonucleotide therapeutics for the treatment of diseases, including chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
An estimated 240 million people were living with CHB worldwide, with 0.9 million new infections each year, based on data through 2024 from the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2024, hepatitis B resulted in an estimated 1.1 million deaths, mostly from cirrhosis and liver cancer. However, current therapies can suppress viral replication but rarely achieve a function cure, leaving many patients requiring life-long treatment.
The new financing will support the continued development of AHB-137, AusperBio’s lead candidate seeking to achieve a functional cure for CHB. Still an investigational product candidate, AHB-137 is currently being evaluated in a Phase III trial in China, following completion of a global Phase I study and multiple Phase II studies.
“This financing represents an important inflection point for AusperBio as we advance AHB-137 towards potential commercialisation while developing next-generation therapies for CHB,” said Dr. Guofeng Cheng, co-founder and CEO of AusperBio.
Proceeds from the Series C round will also accelerate the development of its other investigational product candidate, AHB-171, advance next-generation combination approaches for CHB, and further expand the company’s pipeline of therapeutics addressing unmet medical needs, according to the statement.
Prior to its Series C, AusperBio built its capital base starting with a $37 million Series A round led by InnoPinnacle Fund in July 2024, followed by a $73 million Series B round led by HangKang Capital in December 2024.
