August 29, 2022
Chinese cell and gene therapy (CGT) CDMO Porton Advanced Solutions has completed an $80 million Series B round to expand its business into new markets.
The Suzhou, China-based company has built an integrated contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) platform that provides plasmids, cell therapy, gene therapy, oncolytic virus, nucleic acid therapy and microbial vectors used for gene therapy.
Currently, Porton has a 40,000 square-foot R&D and GMP production facility that has been operating for over two years. It expects a 160,000 square-foot commercial production facility will be operational around the end of 2022. The financing was led by China Merchants Groups’ healthcare PE fund Merchant Health and other China Merchants funds.
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WilliamJu
Also participating in the round were new investors Fosun Health Capital, Gortune Investment and SDICTK. Existing investors Porton Pharma Solutions, CS Capital, HM Capital, Ruilian Investment and Momentum Venture also participated.
When the construction is completed, Porton will have a 200,000 square-foot of process development, analytical development, and GMP manufacturing facility dedicated for gene and cell therapy, complete with 10 GMP viral vector production lines, 10 GMP cell therapy production lines and hundreds of clean rooms. It is working to become a global end-to-end gene and cell therapy CDMO platform to help bring cutting edge therapies to patients with facilities in China and overseas.
Wang Yangzhou, CEO of Porton Advanced, said, “We are very pleased and grateful for the recognition and trust by China Merchants Health and all the other new and current capital partners. With a talented and passionate team, proprietary technologies, state of the art production lines and equipment, as well as track records from both Porton Advanced and from our parent company, Porton Pharma Solutions, we will work hand in hand with our sponsors and partners to reach more milestones in the GCT field.”
Representing the current consortium of investors, the lead investor China Merchants Health expressed its great confidence in the GCT field and said, “Cell and gene therapy holds great promises for patients as well as for long-term commercial success. Porton Advanced is a leading cell and gene therapy CDMO service provider with a very experienced, internationally oriented management and technical team.”
Porton Advanced is the cell and gene therapy subsidiary of Porton Pharma Solutions, a CDMO with operations and offices in the US, EU and China. Porton Pharma Solutions provides end-to-end process R&D and manufacturing services for small molecule APIs, dosage formulations and biologics.
Established in Suzhou Industrial Park in 2018, Porton Advanced offer cell and gene therapy services that include cell banking, process development and analytical development, cGMP production to final Fill and Finish, investigator-initiated clinical trials (IIT), IND filings and production from clinical trial to commercial levels.
This is an amended version of an article first published in ChinaBioToday on August 22, 2022
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