Suzhou Huiliao Biotech Completes Over 100 Million Yuan Pre-Series A Financing.

Suzhou Huili Biomedical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huili Biotechnology") recently completed a Pre-A round of financing worth over 100 million yuan. This round of financing is led by Juming Venture Capital, with investments from Shunwei Capital, Zhongxin Capital, and Yajie Fund, and the old shareholder Sequoia China continues to increase its investment. Yujian Capital serves as the financial advisor in this transaction.

This is the company's second round of new financing after completing nearly 100 million yuan in angel round financing in September 2021. The company's angel round is led by Sequoia China, with joint investment from Jinpu Health Investment and Huiding Investment. The financing funds will mainly be used for the clinical promotion of the company's mRNA product pipeline, the expansion of the R&D team, the construction of a new siRNA platform, and the expansion of the Phase II R&D center. Through this round of financing, Huihui Biotechnology will vigorously promote 1-2 products to enter clinical trials this year.

Founder and CEO, Dr. Zhong Tianyi, expressed:

"We extend our gratitude to the new investors in this round—Juming Venture Capital, Shunwei Capital, Zhongxin Capital, and Ajar Capital—for their recognition of our company's value, as well as to our existing shareholder, Sequoia China, for their continued support. All these investors are specialized institutions in the biopharmaceutical field, possessing profound insights and understanding of the mRNA sector. With the support of both new and existing shareholders, HuiBio will continue to uphold its innovative and pragmatic corporate culture, rapidly advancing in multiple areas including technology platforms, novel delivery systems, and pipeline products. We are committed to growing into an internationally leading biopharmaceutical company that expands from China to the world."

Focusing on the industrialization of nucleic acid drugs, building a "three in one" platform for nucleic acid drug research and production

The founding team of the company comprises some of the earliest core R&D members in China engaged in nucleic acid drugs, particularly in nucleic acid delivery systems. They possess deep expertise in the iteration and development of delivery systems. During the early stages of the company's R&D, they made forward-looking strategic arrangements, resulting in a patent portfolio and technological barriers that enable the company to compete with global pharmaceutical enterprises on the international stage.

The company has established a comprehensive "trinity" platform for nucleic acid drug R&D and production, including an innovative nucleic acid delivery vehicle platform—Cell-Like System (CLS), a superfluidic production platform, and a high-throughput, intelligent mRNA design and synthesis platform.

HuiBio's proprietary CLS delivery technology platform demonstrates significant advantages over traditional Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) carriers in terms of delivery efficiency, organ targeting, safety, and dosage (supported by data showing orders of magnitude improvements in both small and large animal models). The platform can be rapidly iterated and upgraded based on the specific needs of target pipelines, laying a solid technical foundation for advancing product pipelines.

Additionally, through strategic collaboration with a leading domestic nanomedicine production process R&D company, the company has developed a superfluidic production platform for nucleic acid drugs with globally leading throughput. Leveraging the advantages of its delivery system and mRNA design capabilities, the company has already built a pipeline covering applications such as infectious disease vaccines, cancer vaccines, immunotherapies, metabolic diseases, autoimmune diseases, and protein replacement therapies.

Furthermore, the company has established a high-throughput, intelligent mRNA design and synthesis platform. By constructing a library of tens of thousands of UTRs and IRESs, and considering factors such as structure and immunogenicity, the platform enables efficient sequence optimization for both linear and circular mRNA, significantly enhancing in vivo protein translation efficiency.

Juming Venture Capital stated:

Delivery technology is the core technical difficulty for whether nucleic acid drugs can be expanded to more therapeutic fields. The CLS system independently developed by Huitherapy Biology has the characteristics of tissue targeting, low immunogenicity, high transfection efficiency, and applicability to various RNA drugs. The founding team of Huihui Biotechnology has highly complementary professional backgrounds and strong appeal. They quickly formed a dynamic and comprehensive team, and based on the CLS system, the company has built a full process mRNA drug research and development platform, achieving excellent progress in promoting multiple products. Juming Venture Capital is very pleased to support the development of Huili Biotechnology. We look forward to Huili Biotechnology continuously exploring and breaking through the boundaries of RNA drug delivery, developing a series of products for various fields with unmet needs, and hoping that more and more RNA products can benefit society more widely.

Shun represents capital:

RNA technology, as a platform based drug development technology, has broad application prospects. Although mRNA vaccines shine brightly in the COVID-19 epidemic, the development of the entire RNA drug field has just begun. Safe and efficient targeted delivery is currently the key factor restricting the development of RNA drugs. Compared with the widely used LNP delivery technology, the cell membrane like (CLS) delivery technology independently developed by Huitherapy Biology has significant advantages in organ targeting, delivery efficiency, stability, safety, etc. CLS is a platform technology with complete intellectual property rights and clear patents, laying a solid foundation for the company to expand into more indications and overseas markets in the future. The core team of Huitherapy Biology has rich experience in RNA drug development and has established a complete technical system covering the entire process of RNA drug development, including delivery system development, sequence design and synthesis, and large-scale production. The Shunwei team is optimistic about the huge development prospects in the field of RNA drugs, and believes that Huihui Biotechnology, based on independent innovation and leading technology in the entire process of nucleic acid drug development platform, under the leadership of a professional and efficient core team, can grow into a leader in the field of nucleic acid drugs through continuous technological innovation, and use RNA technology to benefit society.

Zhongxin Capital states:

Nucleic acid drugs have developed vigorously in recent years with its unique advantages. The widespread use of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine has further improved the public's acceptance and awareness of it. The scope of indications is gradually expanding from vaccines, rare diseases to chronic diseases, tumors and other fields. A key link of nucleic acid drugs is how to build a safe and effective delivery system. LNP technology is relatively mature and has been verified in COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, but patent ownership has restricted its widespread use. Huili Biotechnology has built a delivery platform with independent intellectual property rights - Cell like Membrane Technology (CLS), which demonstrates good delivery efficiency and safety, achieves breakthroughs in underlying technology, and has broad application prospects in the field of nucleic acid. The company has a well-established team and rich industry experience. We are pleased to participate in this financing and look forward to the company's significant development and creation of greater social value.

Yajie Fund stated:

Delivery technology has always been the engine for the development of mRNA enterprises, but the research and accumulation of technology is a long and difficult road. There are still many challenges to be solved in the delivery technology of mRNA drugs, and global enterprises are also striving to break through the high technical barriers and comprehensive patent monopolies of mRNA. Huizhi Biotechnology is exactly the innovative mRNA enterprise we see with international competitiveness and clear patents in delivery technology. At the same time, in terms of product pipeline, Huihui Biotechnology takes animal vaccines as the entry point, forms differentiated competition with domestic mRNA enterprises, and lays out mRNA tumor therapeutic vaccines and protein replacement therapy pipelines. As a new investor in the current round of Huili Biotechnology, Yajie Fund is deeply impressed by the company's core team's technological research and development capabilities and execution capabilities in translation. We look forward to the company continuously breaking through the delivery efficiency and application scenarios of mRNA drugs in the future, bringing more innovative drugs into clinical practice as soon as possible, and benefiting patients.

Sequoia China states:

In the 2.0 era of nucleic acid drug field, possessing independent intellectual property rights in non LNP delivery technology and new information molecular entity technology, and being able to apply them to many scenarios including infectious disease vaccines, tumor vaccines, and protein substitutes, is the core of a high-quality nucleic acid drug enterprise. Sequoia China has continuously invested in Wistron Biologics in the seed and pre-A rounds, recognizing the company's deep cultivation of innovative delivery technology and the application of non LNP delivery technology with independent intellectual property rights in various indications. We look forward to the company continuously enriching its pipeline layout and benefiting patients as soon as possible