Shanghai Mab-Venture Biopharma, a three-year old CRO/CMO, raised $35 million in a Series A round led by Prosperico Venture. The company focuses on biologics, including biosimilars, bio-betters and novel biologic drugs. It partners with other companies, both domestic and international, to provide development and manufacturing services, and it is developing it own portfolio of drugs. The company expects to file INDs in the next two to three years. Mab-Venture will use the funds to expand its innovative antibody drug development platforms and production capacity.

Founded in 2013, Mab-Venture is located in Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. The company expects to build a world-class R&D and pilot workshop platform for biologic drugs. Mab-Venture's team has experience working for international biotech companies, including Amgen, Novartis, J&J, GSK and LifeTech.

In May 2015, Mab-Venture completed construction of a 17,000 square foot R&D and pilot workshop base in Zhangjiang Park. The facility provides whole process design and implementation for biologic drugs in R&D, preclinical and clinical stages.

Mab-Venture has been very successful in forming partnerships. It has established relationships with China companies that include SL Pharma, Salubris, Yabao, Yangtze River Group, Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, Shanghai Pharmaceutical and institutes including Tsinghua University, Pasteur Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Pharmaceutical Research Institute and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.

Dr. George Wang, the founder and CEO of Mab-Venture, said, "With the help of investors like Prosperico Venture, the company will accelerate the upgrading of production capacity, expand our R&D capabilities and quickly push the process of innovative drug development forward."

The president of Prosperico Venture, Mr. Tingzhi Qian, added, "Dr. Wang is leading a R&D team who have a deep understanding of the entire process of biological macromolecular drug development and a solid technical ability. I have full confidence that they will drive the innovation level of the domestic biological industry by assisting the R&D of bio-macromolecules for many biotech companies."

Prosperico Venture, which manages $75 million, focuses on healthcare investments. Since its founding in 2015, Prosperico has invested in more than 10 biotech and high growth healthcare enterprises.

Disclosure: none.