Grasp the professionalization trend of pharmaceutical R&D and production outsourcing.
It is learned that CDMO companies focusing on small molecule innovative drugs “Lome Medicine have received nearly 100 million Yuan B + round financing, led by a village capital, investment wealth and investment. It is reported that this round of financing is mainly used for the construction of technology research and development and business operation teams.
Luowei Pharmaceutical was established in 2005 and was listed in the New Third Board in 2016. After that, it completed 100 million rounds of B round financing in 2018. Huafei Capital and Jifeng Capital led the investment in Beijing and Tianjin. Established branches in Taizhou, Zhangzhou and the United States, including management centers, pilot-scale R&D platforms, non-GMP pilot-scale R&D services and production workshops, multi-functional cGMP production workshops and overseas branches.
The chairman of Lewei Pharmaceuticals, Chen Wenzhao, revealed that at the beginning of the company’s establishment, the mainstream mainstream organizations in the market were mainly to provide pre-development services for innovative drugs or to entrust customers with production processes. The technology transfer and expansion of production, the lack of the platform to further convert the previous research and development results into drugs and gradually market to the market, namely innovative drugs from preclinical research to clinical trials intermediate services are relatively blank.
The immediate consequence is that the market for new drugs is generally slow. Chen Wenzhao revealed that he had participated in a drug research and development in the United States. The drug was in clinical trials in 1999, but it has only recently been listed in the United States. Based on this, Levi Pharmaceuticals has entered the CDMO field to provide customized R&D and custom manufacturing services to pharmaceutical companies, and to explore how to help screened compounds to be “prepared” and marketed.
As of now, Levi Pharmaceutical has formed an open technology platform that covers the process conversion needs of innovative medicines (mainly small molecule drugs) from laboratory to industrialization, including pre-clinical to approved Process research and development, process optimization, pilot and scale production, etc., the treatment field involves anti-virus, anti-tumor, cardiovascular and metabolic system diseases, central nervous system diseases.
The reason for targeting small molecule drugs, Chen Wenzhao told us that in addition to team genes, and small molecule drugs dominate the market, the trend of outsourcing of head enterprises is also an important factor. In recent years, under the pressure of falling drug prices and operating costs, large pharmaceutical companies have adjusted their business, focusing on core businesses such as R&D and sales, and turned to the development of biopharmaceuticals.
According toFrost&SullivanAccording to statistics, since 2007, global pharmaceutical companies have reduced their R&D and production operations in Europe and the United States and gradually moved to the Asia-Pacific region, especially China and India have the most potential. The small molecule drug outsourcing business maintains high fever and is higher than the growth rate of the pharmaceutical industry. Domestic CDMO companies can seize market dividends with cost advantages and service flexibility.
Chen Wentao said, “The discovery of targets by biotechnology companies and the commissioning of CDMOs to use targets as small molecule innovative drugs will become the mainstream in the market.” Binghong Capital has analyzed, CDMO technical barriers are high (chemical synthesis requires high innovation) It has a lucrative profit and a competitive advantage. It is easier to establish long-term cooperative relationships with customers and conform to the trend of industrial development. At present, CDMO is also the main development model of industry head enterprises, such as Hequan, Kailaiying and Boteng.
To date, Levi Pharmaceutical has established partnerships with more than 200 international and domestic pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, mainly for European and American customers (accounting for nearly 80%), including the top ten pharmaceutical giants and emerging pharmaceutical companies.
In view of the long chain of new drug research and development and more outsourcing links, CDMO companies are currently expanding their integration to enhance customer stickiness, including expanding to CRO business and improving the possibility of obtaining follow-up CMO business; Or extension of the formulation to reduce the risk of customer technology transfer and so on.
Lome Medicine’s development logic is to open up the industry chain vertically. Chen Wenzhao revealed that Levi Pharmaceuticals had previously concentrated its technical strength before the first phase of clinical trials. With the advancement of the project, the demand for technology by pharmaceutical companies will continue to decline, but the high profit margins in the development of innovative drugs often appear in the stage of mass production, while The economic benefits of this stage are not obtained. Based on this, Levi Pharmaceuticals also set up a standard cGMP plant last year to advance the project to the later stage. The plant is expected to be available in the second half of next year, when the company can provide customers with drug outsourcing services.
Chen Wenxi believes that with the advancement of the globalization of pharmaceutical R&D, the horizontal development of multinational pharmaceutical companies – from pharmaceutical companies to therapeutic companies, to further transformation into health management companies, their capacity and technology for outsourcing companies Requirements will be higher and higher; with precision medicineAdvancement, the requirements for medical development and manufacturing are becoming more and more strict; and the changes in human disease spectrum, the future division of CDMO will become more and more detailed and more standardized, which is undoubtedly for Lewei Medicine. Very good development opportunities.
Investment logic, Huang Xiaobin, a village capital partner responsible for this investment, said that is optimistic about the development prospects of new drugs and the CDMO industry around the development of new drugs, and Levi Pharmaceuticals has leading technology. , international and domestic customer structure and excellent team. Previously, the cross-border M&A project completed by Yicun Capital (Joint Haichen Pharmaceutical), NMS, a tumor innovation drug research and development group, also has complete small-molecule CDMO research and development technology and production capacity. The one-village health industry investment M&A team believes that NMS and Lewei Medicine have high synergy effects, and will graft in the future in terms of technology, production management, market channels, and order acquisition to promote the common development of the two companies.
At the end of the introduction, the core team, company co-founder CEO Chen Wenzhao graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering of Tsinghua University, graduated from the Department of Organic Chemistry at New Mexico State University, USA, and returned to China for more than 10 years in the US pharmaceutical company. Work experience in innovative drug research and development department; co-founder CSO Dr. Yang Guang, graduated from Peking University with a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Irvine, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the The Scripps Research Institute KCNicolaou. A biopharmaceutical company in the United States engaged in innovative drug research; COO Chen Hongqing graduated from Peking University, served as assistant to the general manager of Jiangsu Jiangyan Fertilizer Co., Ltd., deputy director of the branch, and has more than 10 years of production management experience before starting a business. At present, the entire team has more than 200 people.