Expedition Therapeutics, a biotechnology company advancing a lung disease drug licensed from China’s Fosun Pharma, said Wednesday it raised $115 million in a Series B round that would carry its experimental medicine through mid-stage testing.
The biotech launched in 2024 with a plan to in-license drugs from Chinese pharmaceutical companies and advance them through clinical testing. That strategy made it part of a growing trend in biotech startup creation, as investors are increasingly forming new companies purpose-built to capitalize on a trove of China-originated drugs.
Expedition banked $165 million in a Series A round last year and cut its first deal with Fosun. That partnership handed the company rights across most of the globe to “EXPD-101” which, under the name XH-S004, Fosun had been developing for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
EXPD-101 targets an enzyme known as DPP1, which activates certain parts of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. Neutrophils are crucial in protecting against infections, but can drive lung inflammation when overstimulated. Stifling their activity with a drug could therefore hold promise for treating multiple respiratory conditions.
That potential has attracted the attention of multiple drugmakers in recent years. Insmed licensed a DPP1-targeting drug from AstraZeneca about a decade ago and has brought it to market as Brinsupri, a bronchiectasis treatment that’s expected to become a blockbuster. Others from Boehringer Ingelheim and partners Chiesi and Haisco Pharmaceutical are in clinical testing.
Yi Larson, Expedition’s CEO, said that the drug class could have broader potential by addressing COPD, one of the world’s most common inflammatory lung diseases. Multiple therapies — among them Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi’s Dupixent, GSK’s Nucala and Verona Pharma’s Ohtuvayre — have been approved for COPD patients since 2024.
Larson believes EXPD-101, a once-daily pill, could be a more convenient alternative to injectable therapies or inhalers. And unlike certain biologics, the drug could help the “whole population” of people with COPD, because it acts on a specific kind of “neutrophilic” inflammation those drugs don’t, she said.
“You take this pill once a day, and it can target that underlying inflammation that all the COPD patients have,” she said. “This felt like it could become a backbone of care for patients.”
Expedition recently began recruiting volunteers for what it claims is the first global Phase 2 trial of a DPP1 inhibitor in COPD. Initial data could come in 2028, according to a federal database.
Larson, a Goldman Sachs investment banker-turned-biotech executive, previously held positions or board seats at Turning Point Therapeutics and RayzeBio, both of which were acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb.
General Atlantic led the Series B round and was joined by a dozen new and existing investors such as Vivo Capital, RA Capital Management, Forbion, Sofinnova Investments, Novo Holdings and Venrock. Brett Zbar, a managing director at General Atlantic, will join Expedition’s board of directors.
General Atlantic has backed a string of high-profile private and public biotechs in the last five years, among them Akero Therapeutics, which sold to Novo Nordisk in 2025; Seaport Therapeutics, which went public earlier this year; and Verdiva Bio, another company built around in-licensed assets from China.
Zbar said that General Atlantic has “benefited from the good fortune of having a team and a real presence in China,” where the investment firm has found “first or best-in-class assets.”
