Build an "integrated" overall solution. "Qingyuan Kaiwu" facilitates the domestic substitution of gene sequencing equipment | Early-stage project
In the past two years, catalyzed by the COVID - 19 pandemic, the life science automation track once became an investment hotspot in the primary market. However, with the emergence of homogeneous competition, it is now gradually showing a trend of "involution". Against this background, how should start - up companies cope with market competition?
Recently, at the Global Health Industry Innovation Conference jointly hosted by the Tsinghua Industrial Development Research Institute and the Global Health Industry Innovation Center (GHIC), we interviewed Wang Dong, the founder of Qingyuan Kaiwu, an industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in this field, and listened to his views.
Founded in 2021, Qingyuan Kaiwu focuses on the upstream of the life science and biomedical industries, concentrating on high - end instrumentation and equipment and their industrial applications. Wang Dong graduated from the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University and once served as the person - in - charge of instrument R & D at Boao Biotech Group, a leading domestic gene testing company. Currently, Qingyuan Kaiwu has more than 50 employees, mainly from the R & D and production teams.
At present, Qingyuan Kaiwu has comprehensively deployed several major sectors, including the pre - sequencing processing product line, the pre - mass spectrometry processing product line, and special tools for synthetic biology. In terms of the number of products, the company has developed more than a dozen products, and several of them are about to enter the mass - production stage. "In the future, one of our core goals is to deploy in differentiated directions and let our products be implemented in more different application scenarios."
Take the pre - sequencing processing product line as an example: In terms of the overall workflow, the core work of sequencing includes nucleic acid extraction, nucleic acid fragmentation, and NGS library construction. Given that the development of nucleic acid extraction technology in the industry is relatively mature, Qingyuan Kaiwu focuses on the two major links of nucleic acid fragmentation and NGS library construction when developing products.
Currently, the mainstream recognized methods for nucleic acid fragmentation in the industry are enzymatic fragmentation and ultrasonic fragmentation. Compared with the former, the ultrasonic fragmentation method has many advantages such as strong sample inclusiveness. However, the cost of the instruments and consumables used is relatively high, and it is monopolized by overseas companies. For this reason, the Qingyuan Kaiwu team spent nearly two years trying to complete the R & D work of "domestic substitution" for ultrasonic fragmentation technology and related equipment.
It is reported that the ultrasonic fragmentation technology of Qingyuan Kaiwu has three advantages: First, it achieves efficient and accurate sample processing, shortens the sample preparation time before gene sequencing, and improves the overall experimental efficiency; second, it has wide application adaptability. Whether it is disease gene detection in the medical field, genome research in the scientific research field, or crop breeding gene analysis in the agricultural field, this technology can be perfectly adapted; finally, it has a cost advantage. Through innovative technical means, the sample processing cost is significantly reduced, and the overall cost of gene sequencing is effectively controlled.
"Different from overseas equipment, our ultrasonic fragmentation equipment does not require the use of special consumables. So, after breaking the DNA with our instrument, the well - plate can be directly moved to the library construction equipment. On the one hand, this improves the efficiency of the entire NGS library construction; at the same time, using general - purpose consumables can also significantly reduce the experimental cost. According to our calculations, about 1 million yuan in cost can be saved for every 10,000 samples." Wang Dong said.
Currently, the ultrasonic fragmentation series products of Qingyuan Kaiwu have obtained the NMPA Class I filing certificate and CB and CE certifications, and have established cooperation with several IVD enterprises and third - party testing companies.
In addition, Qingyuan Kaiwu has also launched a fully automated gene sequencing library preparation system, which can integrate library construction, concentration quality control, and homogenization. Through seamless connection with the ultrasonic fragmentation technology, it realizes the "fully automated process from sample processing to library construction".
Wang Dong believes that based on such an "integration of fragmentation and construction" solution, it helps to simplify the complex pre - processing process of gene sequencing, thus facilitating the implementation of domestic substitution.
It is also understood that in the future, the international market is also a core development direction for Qingyuan Kaiwu. In 2024, the company successfully sold relevant equipment to Singapore. In the future, the company will focus on exploring the European and Southeast Asian markets. "We prefer to select products with demand, mature and stable product development, and relatively easy post - maintenance to go global first. So far, the company's overall progress in going global has been relatively smooth."