Porton Advanced Solutions completes a Series B financing round to expand its end-to-end Gene and Cell Therapy CDMO Platforms

On August 19, 2022, Porton Advanced Solutions (Porton Advanced) announced the completion of its Series B financing round with over US$80Million. Current round of financing was led by China Merchants Groups’ healthcare PE fund Merchant Health, along with its sister fund China Merchants Capital, China Merchants Securities Investments. In addition, a number of renowned venture and private equity firms participated in the current round of financing, including Fosun Health Capital, Gortune Investment and SDICTK. Apart from the new investors, current Porton Advanced shareholders, Porton Pharma Solutions, CS Capital, HM Capital, Ruilian Investment and Momentum Venture, also participated in the current round. Porton Advanced will use the proceeds to continue its business expansion into different markets, with investment in core manufacturing infrastructures and in global commercial operations. Such expansion would put Porton Advanced in a great position to become a global end-to-end gene and cell therapy (GCT) CDMO platform to help bring cutting edge therapies to patients.

Focusing solely on gene and cell therapy CDMO services, Porton Advanced has rapidly established an integrated CDMO platform providing a spectrum of services covering plasmids, cell therapy, gene therapy, oncolytic virus, nucleic acid therapy and microbial vectors used for gene therapy (MVGTs). Current operational footprint includes a 40,000sqft R&D and GMP production facility already in operation for over two years, which successfully delivered a number of plasmids, viruses and cell batches to our sponsors. A 160,000sqft facility for commercial production will be operational in the end of 2022/early 2023. By then, Porton Advanced will have over 200,000sqft of PD, AD, and GMP manufacturing facility dedicated for gene and cell therapy. In total, Porton Advanced will have 10 GMP viral vector production lines, 10 GMP cell therapy production lines and hundreds of clean rooms. Such a scale and footprint would allow Porton Advanced to significantly upgrade its AAV, oncolytic virus and mRNA CDMO capacity and capability which in turn empower our sponsors and support the GCT industry.

Current round of financing will help Porton Advanced to further improve the development and manufacturing capacity in both China and overseas, with the aim of establishing a global end-to-end gene and cell therapy CDMO platform. Through its efforts to accelerate the development of GCT therapeutics, Porton Advanced intends to become a top player that help drive the transformation of medicine.

Dr. 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. In the coming months, we will continue to improve and optimize our internal quality and program management systems, enhance our ability to operate at overseas and domestic markets, and continue to provide best possible CDMO services to our customers with our open, innovative and reliable platforms, so that best medicine would reach the public sooner.”

Representing the current consortium of investors, the lead investor China Merchants Health, expressed its great confidence in the GCT field and said that, “the 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. China Merchants Health is pleased to lead in this round of financing and looks forward to working with Porton Advanced to unlock the great benefit of GCT by serving global cell and gene therapy companies, and promote the development of the cell and gene therapy industry for the benefits of patients everywhere.”