Help Therapeutics recently completed a $50M Series A+ financing round. It is reported that this round of financing was led by Nanjing Dynamic Balance Capital and old shareholder Legend Star, followed by Purple Bull Fund, Yongchuang Capital, Nanjing High Tech and other old shareholders, with Probe Capital acting as the exclusive financial advisor.

The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for the application of IND in China and the US, and to continue to increase the advantage of industrialized production lines, improve and optimize the downstream somatic cell production and preparation process, and push the regenerative medicine cell products to clinical trials. It will also be used to develop innovative drug delivery routes, expand the different dosage forms and product formats of regenerative heart cell products, and broaden the application scenarios of heart failure treatment.

In 2019, BlueRock, a star company in this field, was acquired by Bayer at a valuation of USD 1 billion. iPSC technology is mainly used to treat heart failure, Parkinson's and autoimmune diseases.

Help Therapeutics, founded in 2016, is a biotechnology company that uses stem cell and regenerative medicine technologies to treat difficult-to-treat degenerative diseases. The company is based on induced pluripotent stem cell technology (iPSC) to regenerate functional human cells and tissues for the treatment of degenerative diseases.

Notably, Help Therapeutics has successfully completed the world's first clinical trial of human iPSC-derived regenerative cardiomyocytes for the treatment of heart failure, which was exclusively reported globally by the top international academic journal Nature on May 13, 2020. Dr. Jiaxian Wang, CEO of the company, told Artery that the team plans to publish the relevant research results this year. In addition, based on the results of this research, the company has received ethical approval to perform additional cases of heart muscle cell transplantation to treat patients with end-stage heart failure.

Currently, Help Therapeutics has established a comprehensive quality control system for iPSC cell products and can produce iPSC in industrialized mass production.

The funds raised will also be used to optimize the preparation technology and production release process in order to increase the barriers and barriers to industrial production. Currently, the industry sector is facing problems including difficult release process and high production cost. Help Therapeutics plans to achieve a single cell production of 100-500 human therapeutic volume, which can greatly reduce the cost of cell products and provide a solution to the high price of cell products in the future.

A comprehensive talent system that connects all aspects of the industry chain

Dr. Jiaxian Wang is the founder and CEO of Help Therapeutics. He received his PhD in regenerative medicine from the University of Hong Kong and has been a visiting scholar at Mount Sinai School of Medicine for many years. Dr. Wang has published many SCI papers, participated in many national major projects, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and served as a special researcher at the Research Institute of the National Health Planning Commission.

Help Therapeutics Help Therapeutics' founding team includes professionals with a combination of medical, pharmacological, and biomedical backgrounds, and in recent years has included a number of senior experts with experience in drug development in China and the United States. The company has a rich team of senior experts in the field of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and stem cell regenerative medicine, with rich experience in the fields of medicine and product development, which has opened up the whole industrial chain of the company and built a talent resource system that deeply integrates R&D, production and clinical.

Dr. Jiaxian Wang said that regenerative medicine is an emerging field, which is different from traditional pharmaceuticals and requires a strong multidimensional talent team to open up the whole chain of treatment.

"Stem cell therapy, as a new technology, has its own uniqueness in the production and clinical stages. First of all, from the production level, stem cell therapy in the production stage belongs to the category of drug preparation, which requires in-depth cooperation between senior scientists in cell biology and industrial experts in pharmaceutical field for development. In the application stage, the cell therapy needs to be paired with the most appropriate surgical procedure, which is very similar to medical device development. Therefore, the whole process of research and development increases the need for multidimensional talents. And our company's medical team makes a good complement for this." Dr. Jiaxian Wang describes.

Focusing on cardiovascular and neurological areas

Help Therapeutics' current business lines consist of two main pipelines: cardiovascular and neurological.

The cardiovascular research pipeline is based on regenerative cardiomyocyte therapy and covers both major diseases such as ischemic heart failure and minor diseases such as hereditary dilated heart disease. Currently, the pipeline has completed early stage studies and preclinical proof of concept and is in the IND filing stage.

The number of heart failure patients in China is around 25 million, with an annual incidence of about 1.3%. There is a lack of truly effective therapies in the field of heart failure. For end-stage heart failure, the most effective treatment is heart transplantation, but there is often a severe shortage of donors, and the number of people in need of cell therapy is around 5 million nationwide, with an overall market size of over 500 billion RMB.

When asked how he sees the development of iPSC technology, Dr. Jiaxian Wang said, "iPSC offers the possibility of regenerating human tissue cells in vitro, bringing a very good explorable direction for almost most degenerative diseases, with great potential for development. Help Therapeutics is working hard to do this and hopes to collaborate with colleagues in the same field in China to promote the treatment of degenerative diseases. promote the treatment of degenerative diseases."

Xu Ze'an, Head of Medical at Dynamic Balance Capital, highly endorsed Help Therapeutics, saying, "Heart failure is the end battlefield of cardiovascular disease, especially end-stage heart failure, and clinical treatment means are very limited. the team at Help Therapeutics has been dedicated to research and development after landing in Nanjing Life Science and Technology Town, and is guided by clinical needs. They are advancing clinical trials for the treatment of heart failure and are expected to provide better treatment options for patients in the near future. Dynamic Balance Capital is proud to participate in this round of financing, and we insist on being a "nanny" investor who will help the Help Therapeutics team to accelerate the clinical research and productization of the pipeline from capital investment, industrial resources and government support, and contribute to the development of regenerative medicine together. "

Dr. Bo Yu, Head of Medical of Purple Bull Fund, congratulated Help Therapeutics: "Congratulations to Help Therapeutics for successfully completing the new round of financing. As an early investor in Help Therapeutics, this is the third time our fund has added to the company's portfolio. We are firmly optimistic about the application prospect of iPSC for degenerative disease treatment and regenerative medicine, and strongly believe in the expanding application of iPSC as the underlying technology platform in the fields of tumor immunotherapy, cell therapy and gene therapy by virtue of its omnipotence and high programmability. Since its inception, Help Therapeutics has demonstrated the ability to translate outstanding technologies into commercial products. Dr. Jiaxian Wang has led his team to promote the clinical application of regenerative medicine with efficient execution and successfully completed the world's first clinical trial of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes for the treatment of heart failure with promising results. We will continue to support the company's future development and facilitate the cooperation and strategic placement of other cell therapy portfolio companies with Help Therapeutics."

Yan Leng, a medical partner of LegendStar, also expressed her affirmation of Help Therapeutics: "LegendStar invested in the project from the angel round and added Series A and Series A+, first of all, we are optimistic about the team's ability of medical translation. In addition, there are not many high quality cell therapy targets in China, and we have seen surprising results in human clinicals initiated by the investigators. We especially expect that after this financing is completed, Help Therapeutics can further expand the research sample, further standardize the product and complete preclinical trials, and complete the dual reporting in China and the US as soon as possible."

Reprinted from vbdata.cn