Cullgen, a leading biotechnology company developing small molecule therapeutics based on its proprietary uSMITE™ platform of targeted protein degradation technology, today announced that it has closed a $50 million Series B financing (assuming exercise of warrant). In addition to receiving funding from existing Cullgen investors, five new prominent international venture capital firms also participated in the financing, including the lead investor, 3E Bioventures Capital, as well as Heights Capital Management (an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group), Octagon Capital, MSA Capital and South China Venture Capital. The financing will support the development of Cullgen's technology platform and internal pipeline of targeted protein degraders in oncology and other diseases. Cullgen is also pleased to announce that Frank Yan, from 3E Bioventures, will be joining Cullgen's board of directors.

Cullgen is a privately held biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of first-in-class new chemical entities (NCEs) for the treatment of diseases lacking effective therapeutic approaches. Cullgen is developing a proprietary technology platform, ubiquitin-mediated, small molecule-induced target elimination technology, (uSMITE™), based on recent advances in the science of protein degradation. Typically, drugs are designed to interact with the functional sites of proteins and block their activities. Cullgen is developing uSMITE™ to expand the drug design paradigm beyond functional site inhibition, to make it possible to eliminate previously "undruggable" enzymes and proteins by targeted destruction. Cullgen also intends to use the uSMITE™ technology to harness the ubiquitin proteasome system, a multi-step biochemical process that controls protein degradation in all cells. As a result of years of research on the proteasome system and key discoveries about its assembly, Cullgen's founders have previously demonstrated that the underlying technology can rapidly generate a large number of highly potent, selective, and bioavailable compounds. Furthermore, this process is significantly more cost effective compared with traditional drug discovery approaches.