With Eli Lil­ly's back­ing, a team of Seagen vet­er­ans with ADC chops is look­ing to crash the Chi­nese on­col­o­gy par­ty

With an in­dus­try­wide pipeline quick­ly gath­er­ing steam, the Chi­nese on­col­o­gy mar­ket has be­come a red-hot mar­ket for West­ern in­vestors as well as Big Phar­ma part­ners look­ing for the next big thing. One way to get there is to get in ear­ly, and now Eli Lil­ly’s Asian in­vest­ment arm is stak­ing its claim with a team of Seagen vet­er­ans.

Pro­found­Bio, a Suzhou, Chi­na, and Wash­ing­ton State-based on­col­o­gy play­er, has raised a $55 mil­lion Se­ries A with back­ing from lead in­vestors Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures and LYFE Cap­i­tal to ad­vance its an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate and im­muno-on­col­o­gy plat­form in­to clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, the com­pa­ny said Tues­day.

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