Cullgen, Inc., a biotechnology company based in San Diego, CA, and Shanghai, China, has successfully raised $40 million in funding. The company is focused on developing small molecule therapeutics using its proprietary uSMITE™ platform, which is based on targeted protein degradation technology.
The Series C financing round raised $35 million and was led by the AstraZeneca-CICC Venture Capital Partnership (“AZ-CICC”), with participation from Sincere Capital, Voyagers Capital, Wuxi Capital Group (subject to pending ODI approval), and existing shareholder GNI Group Ltd. As part of the Series C round, AZ-CICC will have the right to designate a representative to join Cullgen’s board of directors.
In addition to the Series C funding, GNI Group Ltd. exercised its outstanding warrants for Cullgen stock, resulting in an extra $5 million for the company. The combined $40 million in financing will be used to support the development of Cullgen’s technology platform and internal pipeline of targeted protein degraders for oncology and other diseases.
Cullgen is led by Dr. Ying Luo, Chairman, and CEO. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is committed to developing first-in-class new chemical entities (NCEs) to treat diseases that lack effective therapeutic approaches. Cullgen’s proprietary uSMITE™ (ubiquitin-mediated, small molecule-induced target elimination) platform allows for drug design that extends beyond functional site inhibition, making it possible to target previously “undruggable” proteins for selective elimination. Building on its founders’ years of research into the proteasome system and key discoveries regarding its functionality, Cullgen has produced multiple highly potent, selective, and bioavailable targeted protein degrader compounds using proprietary novel E3 ligands.
