CDMO JOINN Biologics raises $60m to build biotech plant

18-Dec-2019 - Last updated on 18-Dec-2019 at 17:02 GMT

(Image: Getty/Eugeneonline)

JOINN Biologics raises $60m Series A round to fund construction of Beijing facility.

Last year, US-Chinese contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) JOINN Biologics spun off from its parent company. The split, which separated the CDMO from preclinical contract research organization JOINN Laboratories, set the spinout up to focus squarely on becoming a leader in the outsourced development and manufacturing space.

Now, JOINN Biologics has raised money to fund its push to achieve that goal. The money will support the construction of a 100,000L capacity biologics manufacturing facility in Beijing, China.

Building the plant will add to JOINN Biologics’ existing capacity. The CDMO works out of a site in California that houses 200L and 500L single-use bioreactors, as well as 50L, 200L and 1,000L stainless steel bioreactors.

JOINN Biologics also has two 200L and two 500L bioreactors at a site in China, giving it the capacity to support drug developers in two key biotech markets.

The new Beijing facility will operate on a bigger scale, positioning JOINN Biologics to compete with the leading biologics CDMOs for larger, later-stage production contracts. That reflects JOINN Biologics’ aspiration to work across the product life cycle, from preclinical through to commercial production, but puts it in competition with well-established and emerging rivals such as Catalant, Lonza, Samsung BioLogics and WuXi Biologics.

Investors including HG Capital, Nestbio Capital, Hong Kong LINKAGE Holdings and Xiangtang Capital have signed up to bankroll JOINN Biologics’ attempt to realize that aspiration, putting together a $60m (€54m) investment package.

The money will primarily support the construction of the Beijing biologics plant but JOINN Biologics thinks it will have enough left over to fund other activities. JOINN Biologics plans to use some of the money to expand its business in China and the US.

Responsibility for investing the money will fall on a leadership team with experience working at some big companies. Co-founder Tao He spent time at Novartis and Pfizer earlier in his career, while other members of the management team list stints at Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Catalant and Merck on their résumés. The leadership team sits above a 200-strong organization spanning the US and China.