5Y News | Limmuno Biotech Closes Nearly RMB 100 Million Angel Round

On January 18, Shenzhen-based Leman Biotech Co., Ltd. ("Leman Biotech"), a company developing novel tumor immunotherapy drugs based on immune-metabolic reprogramming and artificial intelligence (AI), announced the completion of a nearly RMB 100 million angel funding round. The round was led by Tiantu Capital, with 5Y Capital and XtalPi as co-investors. The proceeds will accelerate preclinical research on its immune-metabolic reprogramming biologics, advance its novel metabolically enhanced CAR-T cell therapy pipeline toward clinical trials, and expand the applications of its self-developed immune-metabolic reprogramming platform to empower next-generation antitumor drug development across additional immunotherapy areas.

Jing Xutian, Managing Director at 5Y Capital, said: "Leman Biotech's pipeline is strategically layered and well-positioned. It can rapidly advance clinical studies to achieve therapeutic breakthroughs while building resilience through steady, methodical progress. The company also has AI-based backup technology pipelines that preserve significant growth potential. Leman's Meta10 technology platform has been experimentally validated as an effective solution to the bottleneck of T cell terminal exhaustion, filling a gap in the field with internationally leading advantages. It holds tremendous application potential and partnership opportunities both for the company's own pipeline development and for broadly empowering innovative pharmaceutical companies in tumor immunotherapy."

Founded in July 2021, Leman Biotech's founding team hails from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), one of the world's top science and engineering universities. Led by Professor Li Tang, the team has conducted cutting-edge research in tumor immunotherapy, publishing a series of internationally leading studies on overcoming T cell exhaustion, with their work selected among EPFL's top ten news stories of 2021. From its inception, Leman Biotech targeted T cell exhaustion — a long-standing bottleneck constraining tumor immunotherapy, particularly for solid tumors. Based on two of EPFL's latest research breakthroughs, the team developed the world's first Meta 10 immune-metabolic reprogramming technology, establishing a proprietary platform for the discovery, R&D, and production of biologics and novel immune cell therapies. Leman Biotech has already developed multiple R&D pipelines with substantial market potential and is steadily advancing them toward clinical studies.

T cell exhaustion is a major challenge currently limiting the efficacy of multiple tumor immunotherapies, making the reactivation of terminally exhausted T cells a focal point of tumor immunotherapy research. Based on the Meta 10 metabolic reprogramming platform, Leman Biotech has developed a novel metabolically enhanced tumor immunotherapy that can reverse immune cell exhaustion and induce stem-like immune memory. By enhancing oxidative phosphorylation metabolism in tumor-specific terminally exhausted T cells, the therapy reactivates these cells and can significantly improve response rates and efficacy across multiple tumor immunotherapy approaches. To date, this therapy has demonstrated significant antitumor effects and substantial application potential in multiple mouse and human tumor animal models, successfully reversing the exhausted state of terminally exhausted T cells, markedly enhancing their antitumor capacity, achieving complete tumor clearance in multiple solid tumor animal models, and inducing immune memory effects — bringing hope for clinical cures.

Schematic diagram of how the Meta10 metabolic reprogramming technology platform significantly enhances multiple tumor immunotherapies

Following this funding round, Leman Biotech will actively advance two representative candidate drugs into preclinical and clinical studies, with a focus on clinical research for melanoma, colon cancer, breast cancer, and other solid tumors. The company has also established a deep strategic partnership with XtalPi, a leading AI pharmaceutical company. Leveraging Leman Biotech's technical strengths in immune metabolism and cell therapy alongside XtalPi's industry advantages in AI and high-precision computational chemistry, the two parties will achieve precise prediction and efficient rational design of biomacromolecular complex structures, jointly developing a next-generation AI-computing-based super immune metabolic regulator R&D platform. This platform will be used to develop a series of immune modulators with higher biological activity specificity, lower side effects, and better efficacy, further opening new frontiers in immunotherapy. Additionally, Leman Biotech will actively expand the applications of its immune-metabolic reprogramming platform to other key tumor immunotherapy areas including TILs, neoantigen tumor vaccines, and immune checkpoint antibodies, providing partner companies with solutions to overcome T cell exhaustion. Grounded in its unique Meta 10 immune-metabolic reprogramming technology, combined with leading AI pharmaceutical and computational methods, and leveraging its distinctive platform advantages to build broad industry partnerships, Leman Biotech is committed to bringing new breakthroughs to the tumor immunotherapy field.

Professor Li Tang, co-founder and chairman of Leman Biotech, said: "We are honored that with the support of our investors and strategic partners, Leman Biotech has rapidly achieved breakthrough R&D progress in a short time by developing our core Meta 10 technology from the unique angle of immune-metabolic reprogramming. This strengthens our conviction in Meta 10's tremendous potential to activate terminally exhausted T cells and significantly enhance tumor immunotherapy efficacy. Going forward, we will further expand our R&D team, advance our core pipeline and technology platform development, accelerate the development and accumulation of new technologies, further broaden our platform's applications, and actively collaborate with innovative pharmaceutical companies in the tumor treatment space to widely apply this technology to improve response rates and efficacy of tumor immunotherapy drugs, striving to benefit cancer patients as soon as possible."

Shuhao Wen, chairman of XtalPi, said: "Leman Biotech's biologics developed based on immune-metabolic reprogramming technology have achieved breakthrough progress in tumor immunotherapy, particularly for solid tumors. We are honored to join forces with a team possessing such critical core technology, deeply collaborating with Leman Biotech by applying XtalPi's quantum physics and AI technologies to target the design and optimization of next-generation super immune metabolic regulators, accelerating the engineering transformation of biologics, and providing solutions to further enhance the therapeutic potential of relevant biologics. We believe this new field holds unlimited possibilities."

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