NEW YORK – Hummingbird Bioscience, a Singapore-based developer of precision oncology drugs, said on Tuesday that it has raised $125 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round.
The financing was led by Novo Holdings, which recently launched an Asian life sciences investment platform in Singapore called Novo Holdings Equity Asia, and this is the first investment it has made in a privately held, Asian biotechnology firm. Additionally, existing investors SK Inc, Heritas Capital, and Mirae Asset Venture Capital joined the round. New investors including Frazier Healthcare Partners, Octagon Capital, EDBI, AMGEN Ventures, DROIA Ventures, Morningside Ventures, Pureos Bioventures, and Polaris Partners, also participated in the financing.
Hummingbird will use the funds to advance its lead pipeline products, such as HMBD-001 and HMBD-002. The company is studying the first drug, a HER3 antibody, in cancer patients with NRG1 fusion-positive and HER3-driven tumors. The second drug is an anti-VISTA monoclonal antibody the company is exploring in solid tumors. The biotech will put financing dollars toward growing the capabilities of its antibody drug discovery platform and move forward other investigational agents in its pipeline, such as a BCMA-TACI, dual-specific T-cell engager, dubbed HMBD-009.
As part of the financing, Kenneth Harrison, a partner at Novo Ventures, will join Hummingbird's board of directors.