After securing a multibillion-dollar biobucks deal with AstraZeneca and raising nearly $100 million last year, peptide drug discovery company Syneron Bio has announced the closing of a $150 million series B round to support its macrocyclic peptide development platform.
The round was led by an unnamed international life sciences fund, along with Decheng Capital and CDH VGC, according to an April 3 release. Additional participants included a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, True Light Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and BioTrack, as well as existing investors such as AstraZeneca, LAV, Sinovation Capital, 5Y Capital and others.
Founded in 2022, Syneron leverages artificial intelligence through its proprietary Synova peptide platform. Macrocyclic peptides have been described as a “goldilocks” drug class due to their ability to bridge the gap between small molecules and biologics, enabling the targeting of traditionally difficult disease pathways.
Syneron announced in March 2025 that it had entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca, granting the pharma giant access to its platform in a deal worth $75 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments plus up to $3.4 billion in potential development and commercial milestones. At the time, the Beijing-based biotech also outlined plans to expand its R&D center.
Then in December, Syneron closed its series A and A+ rounds, raising nearly $100 million. At the time, founder and CEO Xiao Zhang said those funds would support the peptide platform and advance pipeline programs toward the clinic. In Friday’s press release, Zhang added that the new series B financing will further support the company’s oncology, autoimmune, metabolic and rare disease programs.
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Elsewhere in the industry, Novartis in February inked a deal potentially worth more than $1.7 billion with California-based Unnatural Products to develop macrocyclic peptides, one of several agreements centered on the approach in recent years.
