Chinese investors bet $100 million on Stealth Bio's mitochondria tech

Independent mitochondrial DNA specialist Stealth BioTherapeutics has raised $100 million from Nan Fung Technology’s Pivotal Beta and other new and existing investors.

Chief executive Reenie McCarthy said: “We particularly welcome our new investors’ deep experience within the China healthcare market, which we view as an important frontier both for rare mitochondrial diseases under China’s recent rare disease initiative, as well as for diseases of aging.”

The money will finance a Phase IIb trial of Stealth’s lead compound, elamipretide, in intermediate dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), for which positive interim results were recently reported and full results are expected later in 2018.