Medical and Health Industry Weekly Report | Ruoyi Bio Obtains Tens of Millions of Yuan in Pre-A+ Round Financing; An American Pharmaceutical Company Raised 2.5 Billion After Purchasing Two New Drugs from China.

In recent years, the healthcare industry has witnessed a continuous emergence of innovations and has developed into one of the most active sectors. 36Kr has witnessed and accompanied the growth of innovative enterprises in this field and brought professional voices to the industry.

For this reason, 36Kr has launched the "Healthcare Industry Weekly Report" column, which will be released regularly to provide readers with industry information from multiple perspectives such as capital, policies, finance, and new products.

Please check the Healthcare Industry Weekly Report for October 20. This weekly report includes financing news in the healthcare field this week.

Financing and Investment

• RuoYi Bio Receives Tens of Millions of Yuan in Pre-A+ Round Financing

Suzhou RuoYi Biotechnology Co., Ltd. has completed a Pre-A+ round financing of tens of millions of RMB, invested by Kunshan Angel Fund. The funds from this round of financing will mainly be used for the technology transfer from the pilot to commercial production process of the third-generation botulinum toxin drug pipeline (Sf9 cells, natural amino acid sequence). In addition, Kunshan will provide RuoYi Bio with a nearly 10,000-square-meter commercial production workshop, corresponding supporting policies, and cooperation with the Shanghai Plastic and Reconstructive Medical Industry Innovation Research Institute, etc.

• CellXinBio Completes Tens of Millions of Yuan in Pre-A Round Financing

Shanghai CellXinBio Medical Technology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of a Pre-A round financing of tens of millions of RMB. This round of financing was jointly completed by Zeyu Capital and Semir Venture Capital. The funds raised will mainly be used to advance the clinical trial of the NP001 project and the R&D of other products in the pipeline, aiming to accelerate the clinical transformation and commercialization process of the Treg therapy.

• Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Completes 300 Million Yuan in C1 Round Financing

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals has successfully completed a C1 round financing of 300 million yuan. This round of financing is led by the well-known industrial party China Biopharmaceutical, with Pudong Venture Capital and Zhangjiang Haoheng participating, and the old shareholders Qiming Venture Capital and Shanghai Biomedical Fund following the investment. In addition, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals has recently initiated the C2 round of financing, and the raised funds will mainly be used to accelerate the clinical progress of the company's clinical-stage pipelines, especially LM-302 and LM-108, and to support the company's independently developed antibody discovery platform, next-generation ADC technology platform, and bispecific antibody technology platform to continuously generate innovative pipelines.

• Square and Completes Hundreds of Millions of Yuan in B Round Financing

Square and (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Square and") announced the completion of a B round financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. This round of financing is led by Tongchuang Weiye, with Yuanhe Puhua, Yahui Investment, Yunhui Capital, Xiangcheng Jinrong Capital, Entropy One Capital and Boxin Capital following the investment. Square and is committed to the intelligent solution of computer vision systems. The company is headquartered in Beijing and has R&D centers, intelligent manufacturing centers and sales centers in Chengdu, Sichuan, Dongguan, Guangdong, and Southampton, UK. After this round of financing, Square and will set up an East China Center in Suzhou to further expand the R&D and production of intelligent manufacturing systems for more medical devices and consumables.

• DenovoMed Announces Over 300 Million Yuan in E Round Financing

DenovoMed announced the completion of the first closing of the E round financing of over 300 million yuan. This round of financing is jointly led by Zhongshan Venture Capital under Zhongshan Investment Control and AMR Action Fund (AMR Fund), and the funds obtained will be used to support the core new drug R&D pipeline, including the late-stage clinical trials and commercialization of the new drug candidate TNP-2198 for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection and the new drug candidate TNP-2092 for the treatment of implantable medical device infections.

36Kr Exclusive Interview

• Domestic New Drugs Sweeping the European and American Markets, But Also Expecting China to Have Its Own "Internal Circulation" Trading Ecology | 36Kr Exclusive Interview

In 2024, the competition point of the biomedical industry has finally come to the once "undruggable targets".

Many innovative pharmaceutical company personnel who have facilitated large-scale outbound licensing (BD) cooperation this year have perceived that currently, compared with the previous stage of following homogeneous drugs, the product types that "technological breakthroughs drive market breakthroughs" are gradually increasing. For example, the previous "weight loss miracle drug" GLP-1, the β-amyloid plaque research in the field of Alzheimer's, and the currently popular new drug molecules such as TCE bispecific antibodies and KRAS targets.

At the beginning of this year, when looking forward to the future development of the domestic medical industry, Wang Yinxiang, Chairman and CEO of Jacobiopharmaceuticals (01167.HK), once predicted this trend to 36Kr. In his opinion, this will also become the "key to competing on the same stage for Chinese innovative pharmaceutical companies and overseas enterprises".

At the end of September, Jacobiopharmaceuticals announced that it has received the 173 million yuan down payment and other funds for the two authorized pipelines, KRAS G12C inhibitor Golexeles and SHP2 inhibitor JAB-3312, from its partner Allist Pharmaceuticals (SH: 688578). This cooperation only involves the rights and interests in the Chinese region, but the total price is nearly 1 billion yuan, which is the highest amount in the existing KRAS product transactions in China.

As the prediction gradually becomes a reality, we took this opportunity to follow-up with Wang Yinxiang again: Why would a mature product about to be launched choose the BD cooperation model? When Chinese innovative pharmaceutical companies are choosing to go overseas one after another, will selling the rights and interests in the Chinese region at a good price become the key to the next authorization? When two enterprises that are strong in R&D and sales respectively cooperate, what kind of running-in will they experience... (Click here for details)

Focus Analysis

• After Buying Two Chinese New Drugs, This American Pharmaceutical Company Raised 2.5 Billion | Focus Analysis

In mid-September, an overseas innovative pharmaceutical company, Candid Therapeutic, which announced a high-profile financing of 370 million US dollars, caused a heated discussion in China. In addition to setting a record for the highest fundraising in the biomedical industry in 2024, another point that this company attracts the most attention is that both of its core products are purchased from the newly established overseas NewCo companies of Chinese pharmaceutical companies, and they are both the currently popular TCE bispecific antibody varieties for autoimmune (hereinafter referred to as "autoimmune") diseases.

The two NewCos are TRC004, jointly established by Genor Biopharma and Two River, etc., and Vignette Bio, incubated by EpimAb Biotherapeutics and Foresite. Among them, Vignette Bio made its debut less than a week earlier than Candid.

In 2024, product licensing transactions represented by NewCo are the most frequently mentioned words in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. If it is necessary to say the difference between it and the traditional outbound licensing, then, NewCo is generally a new company established overseas led by financial capital. Chinese pharmaceutical companies will license their products to it and obtain certain cash and equity compensation.

The most ideal expectation of the planners for the outcome of NewCo is that when the product development is relatively mature after several years, it will be acquired by multinational pharmaceutical companies at a high price or listed on the US stock market... (Click here for details)

• How to Understand Medicine and Find the Inspiration for the Integration and Innovation of Medicine and Engineering?

From medical imaging technologies such as MRI to surgical robots, and to the application of artificial intelligence in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, in recent years, the original medical innovation led by the "integration of medicine and engineering" has organically integrated medicine and engineering, giving birth to a series of innovative medical devices and applications. In the process of system construction, how to break the simple combination of "1 + 1" and make the technology truly go out of the laboratory to generate clinical value, economic value and social value is still the direction that researchers, hospitals, enterprises and other practitioners are tirelessly exploring.

In order to promote the cross-integration of medicine with various disciplines and industries, promote the innovation of science and technology finance, and promote enterprises, the investment community and interdisciplinary professionals to deeply explore and understand medicine, and jointly promote the innovation of the medical industry, guided by the Beijing Tsinghua Industrial Development Research Institute, the Global Health Industry Innovation Center, the Beijing Branch of China Construction Bank, and the CCB Training Center (Beijing) have jointly created the "Pilot Innovation and Development Program" for the healthcare industry, and the recruitment of the third-phase members is now launched. This program is a professional medical course provided for the leaders of the medical innovation industry, hoping to help non-medical professionals comprehensively and quickly learn and understand medicine and reshape the medical knowledge system.

This project has invited nearly 100 senior clinical medical experts from well-known tertiary hospitals in China to give lectures. The course content covers the diagnosis and treatment technologies in multiple medical fields such as heart, blood vessels, brain, nerves, digestion, respiration, blood, orthopedics, five senses, head and neck, urology, gynecology and pediatrics, stomatology, and mental psychology... (Click here for details)

Editor: Hai Ruojing