Clover Biopharmaceuticals (Clover), a Chinese biotechnology company and a developer of COVID-19 vaccines, said on 23 February 2021 that it has raised USD230m from investors, including Singapore's state investment firm Temasek Holdings, Reuters news agency reported n Tuesday.

In a statement, Clovers said the proceeds of the fund-raising would be used to develop vaccines targeting COVID-19 and other diseases, as well as cancer therapies.

A spokeswoman of Clover was quoted as saying: "We are working on broadly protective coronavirus vaccine approaches for variant strains of interest," without identifying the specific strains of SARS-CoV-2 to be targeted by the firm's new candidates.

Reportedly, this latest round of fund-raising, co-led by Temasek and GL Ventures, brings Clover's total capital raised in the last 12 months to over USD400m.

According to Clover, it has also started production planning for potentially hundreds of millions of doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year. Its global trial is backed by non-profit group the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Clover, which has been developing a vaccine using an immune response-boosting ingredient made by US-based Dynavax Technologies Corp, plans to start mid- to late-stage clinical trials in the first half of 2021, Reuters added.