"Henjing Bio" Secures Over 200 Million Yuan in Series A Financing, and the Production of GLP-1 and Insulin API Is About to Commence | Exclusive from 36Kr

36Kr exclusively learned that Hengjing Hechuang Biomedical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hengjing Bio") has completed a total of approximately 250 million yuan in Series A and Series A+ financing. Among them, the institutional investor in the Series A round is Shanghai Zhangke Lingyi; the Series A+ round is mainly composed of additional investments from old shareholders and self-raised funds by the founding team. The raised funds are mainly used for product clinical research, production project construction, daily operations, etc.

Hengjing Bio was founded in 2021 and focuses on the industrialization of biosimilars, bioinnovative drugs, and biological products represented by insulin and GLP-1 receptor agonists. The founder, Dr. Fan Hao, completed postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health in the United States and has more than 20 years of experience in the research and development and large-scale production of biological products, leading the development of more than 10 large-scale production technology of biosimilar drugs. The core team of the company has an average working experience of more than 20 years in the pharmaceutical field and has established a complete industrialization team including research and development, production, quality control, and declaration.

Relying on Dr. Fan's technical accumulation in the industrialized protein recombinant gene expression system, Hengjing Bio has now established a self-developed technical platform for the production of recombinant proteins by prokaryotic cell genetic engineering. According to the introduction, with the unique high-density fermentation technology and self-developed efficient denaturation and renaturation patent technology, Hengjing Bio can achieve an extremely simplified production process, which can simultaneously produce insulin, GLP-1 drugs, and other polypeptide and protein products; in addition, this process also reduces the use of raw and auxiliary materials and waste disposal, thereby reducing the direct production cost.

"Taking insulin production as an example, currently, the global high-density fermentation OD600 index is generally less than 60, while our high-density fermentation technology can reach more than 250. It is equivalent to that for the same capacity fermentation tank, our production capacity will be between 3-4 times the industry average, thereby achieving a significant cost reduction," introduced Ma Yueqiu, co-founder of Hengjing Bio.

Based on the existing technical platform and industrialization capabilities, Hengjing Bio has carried out a full-industry-chain layout from API to CDMO services, biosimilar drug production, and innovative drug research and development.

Among them, the main products of the API and preparation business of biosimilar drugs include various insulin and insulin analog drugs, and various GLP-1 drugs, such as Semaglutide and Liraglutide.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that Hengjing Bio is also promoting the research and development of two bioinnovative drugs, which will be used for the treatment of skin and muscle trauma repair and respiratory diseases, respectively.

Ma Yueqiu said: "In our plan, the first step of Hengjing Bio is to sell APIs and intermediates to the world; at the same time, we are also doing the registration and declaration of biosimilar drugs and bioinnovative drugs. Hengjing Bio is ultimately not just a raw material enterprise, but a biopharmaceutical company."

At this stage, Hengjing Bio has completed the research and development of more than 10 varieties that are about to be put into production, including various insulins, GLP-1 drugs and their APIs, as well as various key tool enzymes for the production of biomedicines and vaccines. "Just from the perspective of categories, our technical platform is expected to cover more than one-third of the global biopharmaceutical varieties in the future."

In the polypeptide drug track, the cooperation between upstream API and CDMO enterprises and downstream customers is generally relatively close, often reaching more than 10 years. The founding team of Hengjing Bio has the experience advantage of "veterans with a new story", but in the highly competitive polypeptide drug track, how should we understand the advantages of start-up enterprises compared to established competitors?

Ma Yueqiu believes that due to the links involving registration and declaration, filing, etc., there is indeed a problem of high binding between upstream and downstream enterprises in drug production. "But overall, the current global GLP-1 API is in a stage of short supply. After the patent of the original research drug expires in the future, the generic drug market will further expand. As long as there is production capacity, it can be sold. In addition, although there are many companies currently doing GLP-1 API in China, there are not many enterprises that use a biosynthetic plus chemical modification method similar to the original research for large-scale production. Moreover, our factory can be officially put into production in 2025."

In terms of production capacity, the GMP production workshop, comprehensive R & D center and other projects of Hengjing Bio are under construction, with a total investment of 1.6 billion yuan. On the intermediate and API product pipeline, the two API production lines with an annual capacity of 500 kilograms and 3 tons are respectively planned to be put into production in the second quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026; in terms of preparation products, the first preparation production line with a capacity of 10 million drugs will be put into production in the third quarter of 2025, and another larger-scale preparation production line with an annual output of 120 million drugs will be put into production in 2026.

Mr. Du Jun, the executive vice president of Hengjing Bio, has rich global pharmaceutical sales experience. Currently, he is leading the sales team of Hengjing to carry out global business, and has received overseas intention orders from Europe, North America, India, Southeast Asia and other places, with the signed order amount reaching tens of millions of yuan.