The company, located in the Pharma Valley of Nanjing's High-Tech Zone which can be easily accessed within one hour from Shanghai by high-speed train, announced the fundraising today.
TransThera Founder/CEO, Frank Wu said: "TransThera stands for transformative therapy. The name represents our team's mission to develop the most valuable and transformative medicines for patients." He continued, "Innovation in China for the world is continuing to be the main theme here.
By embracing open innovation, we are going to unleash the value of technology and transform our passion into reality. Collaboration will undoubtedly facilitate that process."
Dr. Frank Wu is a veteran in NCE discovery and development.
He and his team bring in decades of industry experiences of science and management in both US-based MNC and China-leading pharmaceutical companies. Before founding the company, Dr. Wu was Chief Executive Officer of XuanZhu Pharma, a premiere drug R&D company in China.
TransThera is aiming to become an innovation platform company, according to Dr. Lu Huang, Managing Director of Morningside Ventures. "We are impressed, not only by Dr. Wu and his team's savvy in science but also their business integrity, leadership skills, and execution capability. We sincerely believe TransThera has great potential to deliver benefits to patients and society by transforming its pipeline into therapeutics in future years."
TransThera will adopt a novel business model to adapt open innovation. Its current portfolio covers disease areas such as oncology, cardiovascular diseases and more.
Morningside Ventures was founded in 1986 in Boston and expanded into China in 1992. Since its establishment, Morningside's team has been persistent in investing into early-stage life science/healthcare companies in North America, Europe and Asia.
Grand Yangtze Investment, a co-investor of TransThera, is based in Shanghai and has a strong track-record in investing and facilitating the growth of startups.