Medical and Health Industry Weekly Report | "NewbornBio" Secures Tens of Millions of Yuan in Series B Financing; Children's "Height Anxiety" Supports a Ten-Billion-Yuan Growth Hormone Market
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 January 5. This weekly report includes financing news in the healthcare field this week.
Financing and Investment
- "NewPro" Completes a Multi-Million Dollar Seed Round Financing
Synthetic biology enterprise "NewPro" has recently completed a multi-million dollar seed round financing. This round of financing is exclusively invested by Linear Capital, and Mingde Capital serves as the exclusive financial advisor. The raised funds will be mainly used for team building, iterative upgrading of R & D technology, pilot-scale production of core products such as lactoferrin, and registration and declaration of new food raw materials. Dr. Zeng Zhe, the founder and CEO of NewPro, graduated from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and participated in the establishment of the Wageningen Institute for Future Food. He used to be a senior scientist at Danone Global Research Center, focusing on the research and development of functional raw materials and the formulation and clinical research of infant milk powder, and has a continuous entrepreneurial experience. In addition, the core founding team of NewPro has more than ten years of industrialization experience, including the research and development of functional food raw materials and the development of industrial microorganisms.
- "Nubang Bio" Receives Tens of Millions of Yuan in Series B Financing
Nanjing Nubang Bio (NNB Nutrition) has recently completed tens of millions of yuan in Series B financing. This round of financing is invested by Huaxi Yuanyou Fund, and the raised funds will be mainly used for the company's new product research and development, production, and market expansion. Founded in 2015, Nubang Bio mainly provides innovative dietary supplement raw materials, semi-finished products and other products to the global market. Well-known enterprises at home and abroad that it has served include GNC, Nestle, Amazon, and Huaxi Biology. The founder, Liao Qilin, once worked for Sinochem Jiangsu Company, known as the "Whampoa Military Academy of Foreign Trade", responsible for the foreign trade of bulk commodities; Currently, the company's R & D team accounts for more than 30%, and the core R & D personnel have more than 20 years of industry experience.
- Even Celebrities Can't Escape Their Children's "Height Anxiety", Supporting a Hundred-Billion Growth Hormone Market | Early-Stage Project
Where there is anxiety, there is business. This sentence is particularly evident in the medical industry.
Recently, the news that the child of Olympic boxing champion Zou Shiming is taking growth hormone due to height issues has frequently been on the Weibo hot search. While netizens are surprised that "even celebrity couples can't escape their children's height anxiety", the low-key hundred-billion growth hormone market has once again attracted attention.
According to the Frost & Sullivan report, in 2023, the market size of growth hormone for Chinese people has exceeded 11 billion yuan, and it is expected to increase to 28.6 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.7%.
As a consumer medical-level "single product" highly sought after by parents, growth hormone has also undergone multiple technological iterations, gradually entering the era of "long-acting preparations" that only need to be injected once a week from the initial need to be injected once a day.
In the past nearly 10 years, the only long-acting growth hormone product that has been on the market in China for a long time is basically "Jin Saizeng" of Jinsai Pharma, a subsidiary of Changchun High-tech. However, since this year, the National Medical Products Administration has successively accepted the listing applications of three long-acting growth hormones, namely Lonapegsomatropin of Visium Therapeutics, Yipei Growth Hormone Injection of Amoytop Biotech, and Pasireotide Injection of Novo Nordisk, which has returned to the Chinese market after delisting for one year... (Click here for details)
Industry Mapping
- In 2024, Why Does the Startup That Breaks the Financing Record in the US Pharmaceutical Industry "Only Love" This Kind of Chinese New Drug | Industry Mapping
The BD and NewCo in the pharmaceutical industry have been bustling for a year. Towards the end of December, the most exciting "winner-takes-all" scenario of this year has finally been staged.
Recently, the US "dark horse" innovative drug company Candid Therapeutics, which was established only 3 months ago, has consecutively announced 3 transactions related to TCE products, with the disclosed amount exceeding 1.3 billion US dollars. Including the acquisition of two TCE concept innovative drug enterprises in September this year, Candid has intensively completed 5 collaborations on TCE products, and the partners are all Chinese enterprises or pharmaceutical companies founded by Chinese in the US.
TCE bispecific antibody is essentially an immunotherapy that can activate T cells. Compared with the well-known CAR-T product that costs one million yuan per injection, it is more convenient and has a cost advantage.
The establishment of Candid comes with a "celebrity aura". In September, the financing amount of 370 million US dollars directly broke the financing record of the biomedical industry this year. Standing behind it are not only nearly 20 US dollar funds such as Foresite Capital and Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, but also the founder, Ken Song, is a continuous entrepreneur who is "very reputable in the industry" and has a strong ability to realize assets. Before the establishment of Candid, the innovative drug project company he managed was just acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb for 4 billion US dollars.
Such a combination and "shopping" speed are almost openly announcing to the global pharmaceutical industry how much top capital and entrepreneurial teams value the TCE field. And Candid may be the most competitive TCE company in the industry... (Click here for details)
Knowledge Materials
- The "Most Miserable" Affluent Disease, Waiting for Ten Years to Finally Welcome a New Drug | Knowledge Materials
When it comes to metabolic diseases, many people probably first think of diabetes and hyperlipidemia. Over the past few years, both pharmaceutical companies and investment institutions have poured countless money and energy into this area. From the blockbuster product Semaglutide (GLP-1) that single-handedly drives the entire Danish GDP, to the long-acting lipid-lowering drug Inclisiran Sodium Injection that can "add 200 patients every day" even with a price of ten thousand yuan, metabolic diseases have supported one hundred-billion market after another in the pharmaceutical industry.
However, compared to these diseases with a high degree of topic, few people have noticed that the problem of gout and hyperuricemia, which has already ranked as the second largest metabolic disease, has not had a new drug on the market for almost 10 years.
According to a research report by Ping An Securities, with the change in diet structure and lifestyle, the prevalence of gout in China is continuously increasing. In 2020, the number of patients with gout and hyperuricemia in China was about 180 million, and this number may reach 240 million by 2030, and the "onset age is becoming younger and younger".
If purely from the treatment perspective, gout is not incurable, but the past products have more or less some side effects. Until recently, a drug called Dotinurad Tablets under Eisai was approved for listing in China for the treatment of gout with hyperuricemia, and this "vacancy period" has finally come to a temporary end.
How will the arrival of the new drug stir the gout market... (Click here for details)
Editor: Hu Xiangyun