For two months, the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus has kept Harbour BioMed CEO Jingsong Wang and millions of people cooped up in their homes in Shanghai. But while the flow of people on the city streets has been squelched during the outbreak, investment has not. 

Harbour BioMed — which has offices in Massachusetts, the Netherlands and China — has raised $75 million and is launching a collaboration with New York’s Mount Sinai Health System to develop a treatment for COVID-19. 

Company executives are calling their latest financing a “B-plus” round, as it consists of investors who were interested, but not ready to participate in the company’s most recent fundraising in 2018.

The group is filled with foreign investors: South Korea-based SK Holdings and Chinese firms Efung Capital and Zheshang Venture Capital contributed to the round alongside pre-existing investors. Their participation delay wasn’t due to increased U.S. government scrutiny of foreign dollars that has scared some financiers away from other life sciences businesses, according to Harbour’s Chief Strategy Officer Atul Deshpande.

The money will help Harbour start its first U.S. clinical trial of a cancer drug it believes could help “lift the brakes” and allow the body’s immune system to attack tumors. The drug is already being tested in Australia, while two treatments for eye and blood disorders are being tested in China.

At the same time, teams from the company’s 10-person laboratory in Newton and Chinese offices will work with Mount Sinai on an antibody-leveraging treatment for COVID-19. The pair will also work on cancer therapies.

The antibodies coming out of Harbour’s labs are roughly half the size of standard pathogen-fighting antibodies, which means the company’s drugs can hold more, and may be better suited to invading tumor cells and be easier to manufacture.

The COVID-19 work is still in early stages, and Wang said the company is seeking out partners to help with manufacturing and marketing. 

“As a biopharma, myself as a physician, it’s our nature to stand in front and fight this infection,” Wang said. “We do realize as a startup biotech company, we have limited resources…. We do realize the timing sensitivity for these types of therapeutics. But, we’re focusing on what we do best.”