2024-08-19
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In recent years, innovations in the medical and health industry have continued to emerge and develop into one of the most active industries. 36Kr has witnessed and accompanied the growth of innovative companies in this field and brought professional voices to the industry.
To this end, 36Kr launched the "Medical and Health Industry Weekly Report" column, which will be published regularly in the future to provide readers with industry information from multiple angles such as capital, policy, finance, and new products.
Please check the August 19th Healthcare Industry Weekly Report. This weekly report includes this week's healthcare financing news.
Financing Investment
36Kr has learned exclusively that recently, the biomedical large model company "Shuimu Molecule" has completed nearly 100 million yuan in financing. Among them, the angel round was led by Huashan Capital, Daotong Investment and iFlytek Venture Capital participated in the investment; Qingzhi Capital participated in the seed round of financing. The raised funds will be mainly used for the development of biomedical multimodal large models and the conversational drug development assistant tool ChatDD.
Shuimu Molecular was incubated and established by the Institute of Intelligent Industry (AIR) of Tsinghua University in 2023. It mainly conducts basic large-scale model research in the biopharmaceutical industry and has developed a conversational drug development assistant tool ChatDD. Professor Guoqiang of Tsinghua University and Nie Zaiqing, chief researcher of AIR, serves as the company's chief scientist.
Academician Zhang Yaqin, Dean of the Institute of Intelligent Industries at Tsinghua University, said that AI+Life and Health is one of AIR's core research directions, and a series of research progress has been made, including accurate prediction of protein structure, AI antibody design, AI molecule design, etc. On this basis, the industry-university-research cooperation between AIR and Shuimu Molecular will form better assistance and synergy.
"Shuimu Molecule" received nearly 100 million yuan in angel round financing, focusing on the development of large biomedical models｜36Kr exclusive
A blue ocean of demand for ophthalmic diagnosis and treatment is taking shape: The "2022 China Health Statistics Yearbook" shows that in 2021, the number of outpatient and emergency visits to ophthalmology departments in my country's medical and health institutions was close to 134 million, and the number of admissions to ophthalmic specialty hospitals reached 2.374 million; and according to the "2023 White Paper on the Mid-to-High-end Ophthalmic Equipment Industry", in 2022, there will be more than 700 million patients with refractive errors in my country, nearly 360 million patients with dry eye syndrome, and a total number of cataract patients will exceed 220 million. The number of patients with macular degeneration, one of the three major blinding diseases in the world, will be nearly 30 million.
According to Frost & Sullivan, the market size of ophthalmic drugs and medical devices in China is expected to reach RMB 44 billion and RMB 55.6 billion respectively by 2025. Since most ophthalmic diseases are difficult to cure with drugs alone, the demand for high-end ophthalmic equipment with higher technological content has been increasing year by year in recent years.
Insighting into this trend, Beijing Xianwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xianwei Medical") was established in June 2022. Focusing on the huge potential of the ophthalmic market, the company has set the ophthalmic microsurgery robot platform and the thermal pulsation eyelid gland therapeutic device as core pipelines. In addition, relying on the team's years of technical accumulation in the field of microsurgery robots, Xianwei Medical has also made ultra-microsurgery robots another research and development focus.
Ma Weimin, founder of Xianwei Medical, told 36Kr that the core highlights of the microsurgical robot under development by the company are the precise control of the master and slave arms, micron-level mobile positioning accuracy of the end, 0 to 200 times action scaling algorithm technology, millinewton-level micro-force feedback technology, and 2.5mm diameter high-precision micro-end actuator design and processing capabilities. "Since its establishment, we have obtained 15 core technology invention patents, and these highlights have been realized both in terms of intellectual property rights and products." (Click here for details)
Shanghai Xuanyu Medical Devices Co., Ltd. announced the completion of nearly 100 million yuan in A+ round of financing, which was led by Guangzhou Jinkong Fund, and participated by several investment institutions such as Zhuopu Capital, Jinxin Capital and Zhangjiagang Industrial Capital, and continued support from old shareholder Xingzheng Capital. This round of funds will be mainly used for the company's commercial team building, accelerated operation of production bases and product pipeline research and development, to create a differentiated cardiac electrophysiology and peripheral vascular intervention product matrix.
Xuanyu Medical was established in May 2020. Relying on three major technology research and development platforms of active equipment, interventional catheters, and biomaterials, the company has entered the two major tracks of cardiac electrophysiology and peripheral intervention, and is committed to becoming an innovation-driven electrophysiology and peripheral vascular minimally invasive interventional medical device leader. In the four years since its establishment, Xuanyu Medical has independently developed innovative cardiac electrophysiology and peripheral vascular intervention products such as the cardiac pulsed electric field ablation system (PFA) and the venous closure system. The registration applications for related products have been officially accepted by NMPA in the first half of 2024, and are expected to enter the commercial verification stage by the end of 2024.
Ningbo Xirun Medical Technology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan in Pre-A round of financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by Ningbo Fuchuang Venture Capital Fund and Ningbo Angel Fund. Since its establishment in 2019, Xirun Medical has relied on the rehabilitation robot transformation platform of Shanghai Jiaotong University to focus on the research and development of rehabilitation robot technology and create a series of soft rehabilitation robot products. The company's products have more than 40 patents and have obtained domestic NMPA, EU CE, and US FDA medical device registration certificates.
Yutu Technology announced the completion of a tens of millions of yuan Series A financing. This round of financing was invested by Taizhou Xiuzhen Medical Health Industry, which will further strengthen the company's dominant position in the field of medical research results transformation. Yutu Technology was established in 2021 and is an ecological operator for the transformation of medical research results. Since its establishment, Yutu Technology has built an ecosystem for the transformation of medical research results, providing medical institutions and medical and health enterprises with a one-stop full-process solution for medical transformation.
Hyma Medical Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. announced the completion of its Series A financing. This round of financing was led by IDG Capital, followed by old shareholders Shanghai Biomedicine Innovation Transformation Fund and Huafang Capital, and Yinglai Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. This round of funds will be mainly used to promote the clinical trials of the company's core product, small-caliber artificial blood vessels. Hyma Medical was founded in 2021. The company focuses on the development and production of small-caliber tissue-engineered blood vessels, which are suitable for the establishment of dialysis vascular access for chronic renal failure, vascular replacement for lower limb artery trauma, lower limb atherosclerosis and coronary artery bypass grafting for coronary heart disease. Based on this technology platform, the company plans to develop and produce other regenerative medicine products, and conduct global clinical research and commercialization to meet the growing and far-from-met clinical needs.
Industry News
Recently, the overseas AI pharmaceutical industry has been experiencing a "heat wave", with large-scale financing and mergers and acquisitions occurring one after another.
On August 8, Recursion, an AI pharmaceutical company heavily invested by Nvidia, acquired its competitor Exscientia for $688 million in stock, marking the first time a biomolecular generative AI model company has acquired a "traditional" AI pharmaceutical company.
According to statistics from Smart Pharmacy, in the first half of 2024, 69 AI pharmaceutical companies around the world received a new round of financing, with a total disclosed amount of approximately US$3.336 billion, of which US companies accounted for 85%. Among them, Xaira Therapeutics, which received US$1 billion in the seed round, and Formation Bio, which received US$372 million in the D round, set new records for financing in the field.
Overseas giants have expressed their belief in "AI pharmaceutical manufacturing" with real money: in the past year or so, Nvidia has invested in 13 AI pharmaceutical companies in succession; Huang Renxun has repeatedly stated that digital biology is the "next amazing revolution" in the field of technology, and that "the era when everyone learns computer science is over, and life sciences are the future."
However, compared with the excitement in the United States, China's AI pharmaceutical industry continued to be cold last year. In the first half of the year, there were 22 financings in China's AI pharmaceutical industry, with a total disclosed amount of about 1.8 billion yuan, which was the same as the same period last year. Among them, Jitai Pharmaceutical accounted for 1/3 of the financing with a financing amount of 100 million US dollars, and other companies that received financing were mostly in the A round and before... (Click here for details)
Editor: Hai Ruojing
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