Zentalis Pharmaceuticals Secures USD 20 Million in Series A Round of Financing

By Apac CIO Outlook | Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Fremont, CA: Clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, closed a USD 20 million Series A financing of Zentera Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Shanghai, China. Zentalis focuses on discovering and developing small molecule therapeutics targeting fundamental biological pathways of cancers. The funding round was led by Tybourne Capital Management, a global investment manager headquartered in Asia, with participation from OrbiMed Asia, a leading healthcare fund in Asia. Zentalis, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, remains the majority shareholder of Zentera.

“The launch of Zentera is a key milestone in our global clinical development strategy,” said Dr. Anthony Sun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Zentalis Pharmaceuticals and Chief Executive Officer at Zentera Therapeutics. “As the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, establishing a joint venture in China is the first step toward advancing our product candidates on a global scale. Furthermore, we are building a management team in China of seasoned professionals who are passionate about improving cancer treatment. We would like to thank our partners, Tybourne Capital Management and OrbiMed Asia, for supporting our vision to efficiently advance our best-in-class therapies to markets worldwide.”

The company will use proceeds from the investment round to develop and commercialize three cancer therapies discovered by Zentalis and potential future candidates in China. Anthony Sun, MD, CEO of Zentalis, will serve as CEO of Zentera. “Over the past few years, we have watched Zentalis’ remarkable clinical progress in developing potentially best-in-class candidates for patients with cancer. We are pleased to work with Zentera, as we believe these therapies will greatly benefit patients internationally,” said Bosun Hau, Managing Director and Co-Head of Private Equity at Tybourne Capital Management

Zentalis’ pipeline candidates that will be developed in China by Zentera include its oral SERD (ZN-c5), WEE1 inhibitor (ZN-c3), and BCL-2 inhibitor (ZN-d5), which address unmet medical needs in large patient populations in both solid and liquid tumors. Additional Zentalis candidates may also be developed in China by Zentera.