Center Lab announced yesterday (April 8) that GenEditBio, an innovative gene editing technology company headquartered in Hong Kong, has successfully completed a pre-A+ round of fundraising totaling tens of millions of US dollars. This round of funding was jointly led by Center Lab and its subsidiary Lumosa Therapeutics. Center Lab's strategic investment in GenEditBio represents its first foray into gene therapy, expanding its exploration in the forefront of life sciences. It also aims to continue Lumosa Therapeutics' leading position in the field of stroke and strategically position its future product line.
Founded in 2021, GenEditBio is a platform-based genetic editing technology company focused on the development of genetic editing tools and related delivery systems. This fundraising will support the development of the company's next-generation genetic editing tools and accelerate the rapid advancement of its product line. It aims to continuously enhance its research and development and commercialization capabilities, establish scalable production technologies and systems for in vivo gene editing drug formulations, and accelerate the progression of its product line into clinical stages.
Rong-Jin Lin, CEO of Center Lab Group, stated that GenEditBio's novel genetic editing technology is at the forefront globally and can provide innovative solutions for significant diseases without therapy. Leveraging the team's years of research experience in relevant fields and rich drug development expertise, GenEditBio continuously promotes technological iteration and updates. Its technological platform can not only develop next-generation gene therapy drugs but also meet the needs of different gene therapy companies, expanding the application scope of gene therapy.
Center Lab is committed to supporting excellent enterprises in the biotechnology field and assisting them in achieving international development. Through investing in GenEditBio, Center Lab will enter the field of gene programming for the first time and looks forward to potential deep cooperation between GenEditBio, Lumosa Therapeutics, and the group's CDMO company to jointly create more breakthrough gene therapy products.
In recent years, gene therapy has been successively approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and launched on the market. Major pharmaceutical companies have increased their investment in this field. Notable recent investment cases include Pfizer's strategic collaboration with gene therapy company Beam Therapeutics for $1.35 billion in 2022, Eli Lilly's $250 million acquisition of options to develop cardiovascular disease gene therapy projects with Beam Therapeutics and Verve Therapeutics in 2023, and AbbVie's $1.44 billion investment in Umoja Biopharma earlier this year to accelerate the development of in vivo CAR-T projects. According to market research agencies, the gene therapy market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9% from 2024 to 2032.
Resource (Mandarin):
