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AusperBio raises USD 120m Series C for late-stage hepatitis B antisense therapy

Edited by Robert McTiernan··2 min read
AusperBio raises USD 120m Series C for late-stage hepatitis B antisense therapy

AusperBio Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on oligonucleotide therapies for chronic hepatitis B (CHB), has closed a USD 120 million Series C financing round to support commercialization readiness for its lead antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) candidate and accelerate a second-generation siRNA program. The raise brings total capital secured since 2024 to USD 360 million, spanning a Series A, Series B, Series B+, Series B2, and now Series C across roughly 18 months.

An unnamed strategic investor led the round, with Boston-based RA Capital Management joining as a new participant alongside returning investors HanKang Capital, Sherpa Capital, InnoPinnacle Fund, Qiming Venture Partners, YuanBio Venture Capital, and CDH Investments. The entry of RA Capital marks a broadening of the investor base beyond the Asia-focused venture firms that anchored earlier rounds. Proceeds will fund the Phase III registrational program for AHB-137, commercialization preparation, and development of AHB-171, the company's hepatocyte-targeted siRNA candidate.

AusperBio was co-founded by former Gilead Sciences executives Guofeng Cheng and Chris Yang and operates through entities in Foster City, California, and Hangzhou, China.

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AHB-137, developed on the company's proprietary Med-Oligo ASO platform, is designed to suppress hepatitis B surface antigen production, inhibit viral DNA replication, and promote immune reactivation. It has completed Phase I and multiple Phase II studies and is currently enrolling in a Phase III registrational trial in China. AHB-171, the first candidate from the Au-HALO liver-targeting delivery platform, uses GalNAc-conjugated siRNA to selectively silence viral gene expression in hepatocytes via the asialoglycoprotein receptor and is in Phase I evaluation. The two candidates operate through mechanistically distinct RNA-silencing pathways — RNase H1-mediated degradation for AHB-137 and RISC-mediated cleavage for AHB-171 — forming the basis of AusperBio's combination strategy targeting functional cure. Chronic hepatitis B affects an estimated 254 million people globally, and current standard-of-care nucleos(t)ide analogs suppress viral replication without achieving functional cure in most patients.

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