AusperBio Therapeutics said this week it has closed a $120 million Series C financing round to advance its lead hepatitis B drug candidate toward a Phase 3 readout and potential commercialization, bringing the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company's total funding since 2024 to $360 million.
The round was led by an unnamed strategic investor and included new backer RA Capital Management alongside existing investors HanKang Capital, Sherpa Capital, InnoPinnacle Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, YuanBio Venture Capital and CDH Investments, according to the company's financing announcement.
Proceeds will fund continued development of AHB-137, an antisense oligonucleotide therapy designed to suppress hepatitis B surface antigen production and inhibit viral replication, through its Phase 3 registrational program in China and toward commercialization readiness. AusperBio said it will also use the capital to advance AHB-171, an investigational RNA-interference candidate built on its proprietary delivery platform, and to expand its broader pipeline of oligonucleotide therapeutics.
"This financing represents an important inflection point as we advance AHB-137 toward potential commercialization."
Dr. Guofeng Cheng, co-founder and CEO, AusperBio
Chronic hepatitis B remains one of the largest unmet needs in infectious disease, affecting an estimated 254 million people worldwide and contributing to roughly 1.1 million deaths a year, mostly from cirrhosis and liver cancer, according to World Health Organization figures cited in AusperBio's release. Existing antivirals can suppress the virus but rarely eliminate it, fueling investor interest in newer antisense and RNA-interference approaches aimed at a functional cure. Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Chris Yang said AHB-137 "has demonstrated promising clinical activity" toward that goal.
The raise adds to a run of large biotech venture rounds in recent weeks even as broader startup funding has concentrated heavily in artificial intelligence. AusperBio, which operates out of Foster City, California, and Hangzhou, China, is now among the better-capitalized private companies chasing a hepatitis B cure alongside larger pharmaceutical firms also active in the space, according to a Yahoo Finance report on the deal. The company said Phase 3 data for AHB-137 will be the next major catalyst determining whether the drug can become backbone therapy for a functional hepatitis B cure.