BRIEF — Xynomic Pharma completes Series B fundraising, sets sights on Abex development

Sino-American oncology company Xynomic Pharmaceuticals has concluded its Series B fundraising round.

All existing investors, Prosperico Ventures and Mark Xu — Xynomic's chairman and founder — contributed to this second round of fundraising.

Following this announcement, the company indicated its intention to begin eight clinical trials. Seven of these prospective trials involve Abex (abexinostat), the company's current lead drug candidate.

These include the use of Abex as a monotherapy in indications of follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), as well as half of dual therapy alongside Keytruda (pembrolizumab) to combat multiple solid tumors as well as alongside Imbruvica (ibrutinib) to treat patients with mantel cell lymphoma and DLBCL.

The company also intends to initiate Phase I trials in its XP-102 drug. The company claims that XP-102 is a second generation, potentially best-in-class pan-RAF inhibitor. It will be tested as a potential therapy to melanoma and colorectal cancer.

Xynomic further announced that it intends to launch a new R&D innovation centre with a focus on kinase inhibition, immuno-oncology and epigenetic modification.