Qiming Pulse Newsletter - August 2023

What's New at Qiming

The CALAYST: Qiming Healthcare Summer Program successfully concluded

Starting from August 19 in Hong Kong, the participants embarked on a one-week journey to gain insights into China's healthcare innovation. They visited China's largest insulin company Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals (HKSE: 06360), innovative biotech companies Jacobio Pharma(HKSE: 1167) and Hope Medicine in Beijing, AI drug discovery company Insilico Medicine's lab in Suzhou, automation company Bioyond Robotics, gene therapy company Belief Biomed, Shanghai Qizhi Research Insititute and Qiming office in Shanghai.

The selected participants came from leading universities in Hong Kong including HKU, CUHK, PolyU, and City U. Communicating face-to-face with company executives, scientists and Qiming investment team, students learned about the latest developments in fields such as gene and cell therapy, AI drug discovery,and automation, learning to transform scientific discoveries into commercial products.

"As a VC firm that has been deeply engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, Qiming team has been traveling frequently between Hong Kong and mainland China, exploring opportunities for collaboration and development." Managing Partner Nisa Leung said in a keynote speech during the kick-off session. "Hong Kong is home to many world-leading universities and research institutions with an outstanding talent pool. Qiming hopes to promote the exchange of talents in the field of life sciences and healthcare through this summer program, strengthening the cooperation, and providing a platform for students to experience innovation, entrepreneurship and startup culture in mainland China."

Qiming Academy held a workshop on operational efficiency for healthcare companies

To increase synergies and dynamics within the Qiming ecosystem, four tech portfolio companies shared ideas on how to improve operational efficiency in the healthcare sector. Almost 80 executives and leaders from 60 healthcare portfolio companies registered for the workshop, coming from biotech, MedTech, diagnostics, healthcare services and digital health, etc. Key takeaways included:

1.?????? Digitalization of sales system. Co-founder of Tungee Technology Huang Junqiang emphasized that sales and customer acquisition are fundamental for B2B companies. Utilizing new data and AI technologies can help companies generate more targeted leads and improve efficiency.

2.?????? Building a knowledge-based organization. Hua Shao, founder of Cool College, pointed out that the healthcare industry is complex and knowledge-intensive, making knowledge management and talent development particularly important.

3.?????? Adopting a new IT structure. For example, Yan Qidong, co-founder of Qingflow, analyzed the benefits of no-code development over traditional SaaS development in terms of lower development costs, shorter cycles, and higher degree of personalized results.

4.?????? Establishing a one-stop digital procurement platform. Sun Yan, general manager of Sunyur's pharmaceutical industry business, shared the cases of helping customers realize zero inventory of non-production materials, reduce procurement cost and shorten procurement cycle.

Qiming Awards

Qiming won 8 awards in 2023 China-fof.com's Annual Special List, including Top 4 Best Return of VC Funds, Top 30 Best Healthcare Investment Firms, Top 20 Healthcare Investors (William Hu), Top 50 Returnee Investors (Duane Kuang, Nisa Leung) and others.

Qiming won Chinese business publication InvestorsCN's Best VC Firm of the Year and LP's Favorite Investment Firm of the Year, and Founding Managing Partner Duane Kuang won Best Investor of the Year.

Qiming was awarded Best Investment Firm and Principal Nan Chen was named Outstanding Investor of Regional Empowerment in 2023 Yicai Equity Investment Value List.

Our Principal Mao Shuo was included in Chinese business data platform Qimingpian's 35 under 35 Outstanding Young Investors list.

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Portfolio Highlights

ESG

Three Qiming portfolio companies have taken action to combat natural disasters brought by recent torrential rains and floods in northern China. Xiaomi(HKSE: 1810) and Meituan(HKSE: 3690) donated RMB 25 million and RMB 30 million respectively to support Beijing and Hebei to support post-disaster relief work in the affected areas. Tuhu donated RMB 3 million to Baoding Charity Association in Hebei Province for flood control and disaster relief work. Meanwhile, Tuhu also provided door-to-door towing and rescue services to fully support the front line of the fight against the disaster.

DST provided 110 new energy logistics vehicles to support the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games. This batch of new energy light trucks will commute between official ports, logistics centers, venues and the Asian Games Village to guarantee the transportation needs of the event.

Pluslife presented its innovative molecular POCT solutions, including the MiniDock Nucleic Acid Amplification Analyzer (MiniDock) and the STD Reagent Cards at the recent at Medlab Asia & Asia Health in Thailand and Medical Philippines Expo in Manila, Philippines. MiniDock is based on Pluslife's patented RHAM constant temperature amplification technology and the accompanying test reagent card can be stored and transported at room temperature, which can effectively avoid the huge cost problems caused by cold chain transportation. It contributes to the prevention and control of infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries and regions.

WeRide welcomed a group of young guests from Daliang Mountains recently. WeRide's mentors introduced self-driving vehicles and exciting tech developments and invited the kids to experience the Robobus. As part of WeRide's efforts in technology public education, the company hopes to inspire more interest and love for technology and motivate young people to create changes for their future.

Financing

Epigenic Therapeutics, dedicated to developing next-generation gene modulation therapy, raised $32 million in Series A round co-led by Qiming. This round will support the preclinical development and early clinical validation of two leading programs, discovery of future pipelines, expansion of the leadership team, and continued investments in the company's core technology platforms. Epigenic's EPIREG? technology offers a compelling alternative to the traditional cleavage-dependent gene editing tools by which altering the DNA sequence would raise safety concerns. By precisely modulating gene expression(s) at epigenetic levels, EPIREG? is expected to achieve potent and durable silencing of target gene(s) to provide revolutionary and novel solutions to patients with chronic diseases.

Atantares completed Pre-A and Pre-A+ rounds of financing of RMB 100 million with participation from Qiming Venture Partners. The proceeds will be used for product development and expansion of services and operation capacity. Founded in 2021, Atantares' vision is to develop molecular chips to drive the semiconductorization of biotechnology. Atantares' first self-developed short-chain CMOS chip has been successfully prototyped.

Qiming has led Saint Sages Surgical's recent Series B round of financing, after leading the company's Series A round in 2021. The new capital will be used for the research and development of innovative energy products, global marketing, and the construction of automated production lines. Established in 2017, Saints Sages has successfully developed several energy device products which are widely used in minimally invasive surgery, hepatobiliary surgery, gynecology, urology, thoracic surgery, and other departments.

DPtechnology raised $100 million in new financing to further scale its advanced technology. Qiming co-led the company's Series B round in 2022. The new capital will be used to expand DP Technology's AI for Science based platforms for drug discovery, materials science, energy and other scientific fields.

Technology & Consumer

Hesai Technology (NASDAQ:HSAI) joined hands with NVIDIA to integrate Hesai’s cutting-edge lidar sensors within the NVIDIA DRIVE and NVIDIA Omniverse ecosystems. By combining Hesai’s industry-leading expertise in lidar sensors with NVIDIA’s AI, simulation, and software development platforms, the collaboration will unlock new possibilities for the autonomous driving industry.

HyperStrong, a leading provider of energy storage system solutions and technical services, partnered with CATL in energy storage, optical storage and charging, intelligent manufacturing, and other areas, planning to purchase a total of no less than 50GWh of battery products in the next three years. HyperStrong also joined hands with Yangtze Smart Distributed Energy to collaborate on project construction, energy management, technological innovation, and other areas.

Rox Motors officially launched the company's first vehicle in China - smart luxury SUV "Polestone 01". Polestone 01 adopts a dual-motor four-wheel-drive extended-range electric system with a CLTC range of 1,338km and WLTC range of 1,115km, a great solution to long-distance outdoor driving. Notably, Polestone 01 is equipped with AT128 Lidar by another Qiming portfolio company Hesai.

DST partnered with CATL and China Development Back Leasing to promote a green and low-carbon public transportation system. In the agreement, CATL will provide batteries for DST vehicles with guaranteed supply of not less than 10Gwh while DST promises to put 150,000 new energy logistics vehicles into operation.

Xiaomi announced a series of new products including Xiaomi MIX Fold 3, Xiaomi Pad 6 Max 14, Xiaomi Bracelet 8 Pro, Redmi K60 Supreme Edition and the new Xiaomi CyberDog 2 during the 4th Leijun Annual Speech event.

Sunyur reached a strategic partnership with US beauty brand KISS Group to build a global procurement supply chain digitalization system, supporting procurement from multiple countries including China, US, South Korea, etc.

Chuhang Technology’s 77GHz corner radar products have obtained the CE certification from the EU authority, demonstrating its product competitiveness in the international market.

Deepway's new energy heavy trucks became the preferred vehicles to serve logistics tasks for China's first heavy truck power exchange mainline "Ning Xia Line", jointly built by CATL's QIJI and Fujian Provincial Expressway Group.

SequoiaDB has been included in Gartner's "Hype Cycle for ICT in China, 2023" report, a high recognition of SequoiaDB's research capabilities. The company was also named to the 2023 IDC China FinTech 50 list, winning recognition for the company's distributed database empowering the financial industry.

Healthcare

DPTechnology has partnered with NVIDIA to develop innovative integrated solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. DPtech's Hermite? tools, including Uni-Dock、Uni-Fold、Uni-Mo have worked with NVIDIA to accelerate the virtual screening of molecular libraries and achieved primary collaborative results. DPtechnology also formed a strategic cooperation with Jiushao in jointly developing JiuShao's "Gel Light NEXT" integrated design and analysis cloud service, based on DPtechnology's Bohrium? microscale scientific computing cloud platform.

CanSino Biologics(SHSE:688185, HKSE: 6185) has signed an agreement with AstraZeneca to provide AstraZeneca with contract development and manufacturing services in support of its mRNA vaccine program, manufacture, and supply products, and provide related services. CanSino's DTcP Infant vaccine has officially started phase III trials and completed the first patient enrollment. The vaccine has showed great safety in phase I and will be evaluated safety and immunogenicity for infants aged 2 months and 3 months in phase III. To deepen collaboration and accelerate commercialization in the Southeast Asia market, CanSino Biologics (Hong Kong) Limited signed a Share Subscription Agreement with Malaysia-based company Solution Group Berhad.

Insilico Medicine joined hands with CSPC to deepen the collaboration in AI-empowered drug R&D. The two companies will combine Insilico's leading AI drug discovery and development capabilities with CSPC's rich experience in clinical development and commercialization to improve the efficiency and success rate of innovative drug discovery. Insilico also reached a clinical milestone of ISM8207 to start Phase I clinical trial in China. It is co-developed with Fosun Pharma for the treatment of advanced malignant tumors.

Venus Medtech(HKSE: 2500?)'s VenusP-Valve has become the first Chinese-manufactured artificial heart valve to be approved by the US FDA for clinical studies. The VenusP-Valve has also been approved for marketing by authorities of Jordan and Qatar, further strengthening its presence in the MENA market. As of now, VenusP-Valve is marketed in over 30 countries, including China, UK, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Greece, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, etc.

Jacobio Pharma's KRAS G12C inhibitor glecirasib was granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation by China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for pancreatic cancer patients with a KRAS G12C mutation who have progressed after frontline standard care treatment.

Frontage US lab acquired Nucro-Technics, which marks another step towards its goal of establishing Frontage as one of the leading players in the global CRO market.

Asieris(SHSE:688176)'s Uro-G and Uro-V disposable cystoscopy systems have recently been approved by the Department of Health of Hong Kong SAR.

AmoyDX (SZSE: 300685) announced a new companion diagnostics collaboration with AstraZeneca. Under the agreement, AmoyDX's proprietary Human 10 Mutation Co-Detection Kit (Reversible End Termination Sequencing) will be developed for companion diagnostic use based on the ENHERTU? drug for the screening of HER2 (ERBB2) mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

Zai Lab (NASDAQ:?ZLAB;?HKEX: 9688) announced that China's NMPA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for investigational repotrectinib for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors that have an NTRK gene fusion who have progressed following treatment with TRK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). This is the fourth Breakthrough Therapy Designation for repotrectinib in China.

China has cleared Gan & Lee’s IND application for GLR1023 Injection. As a proposed biosimilar to Secukinumab (COSENTYX), GLR1023 is indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adult patients who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. Gan & Lee's GZR18, a self-developed long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist drug, completed the dosing of the first patients in two Phase IIb clinical studies for the indications of adult type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity/overweight, respectively in China. The European Medicines Agency has accepted the company's Marketing Authorization Application of Insulin glargine biosimilar, signifying a milestone for Gan&Lee in entering the Europe market.

Tigermed(SZSE:300347,HKSE:3347.HK) opened the company's international headquarters in Hong Kong, further accelerating its international business operation and development.

Antengene(HKSE: 6996) secured a commercial partnership with Hansoh Pharma, which will expand the coverage and access of XPOVIO (?) in mainland China, a first/only-in-class XPO1 Inhibitor. Antengene will continue to be responsible for R&D, regulatory approvals and affairs, product supply, and distribution of XPOVIO?, while Hansoh Pharma will be exclusively responsible for commercialization of XPOVIO? in mainland China.

Oricell Therapeutics obtained China's approval for the IND application of OriCAR-017 Injection, a CAR-T product targeting GPRC5D for the treatment of R/R MM (Relapsed Refractory Multiple Myeloma). This is the first CAR-T cell therapy product targeting GPRC5D in China and the second in the world to be approved for clinical use.

Shukun Technology's lung CT medical image processing software has been approved by China's NMPA. The innovative system can import, display, and operate three-dimensional reconstruction of CT medical images of the lungs, switch viewpoints, manually mark and locate regions of interest, and support follow-up visits.

Awards

Singular Medical and TandemAI made the 2023 Forbes Asia 100 to Watch list, which spotlights small companies and startups that are targeting underserved markets or applying new technologies. Singular Medical's heart monitors can detect irregularities in the patient's heartbeat and apply an electric charge if needed. TandemAI has developed a web-based platform that allows visualization of related experiential data with computational analysis to lower the entry barrier to the more advanced tools in drug discovery.

Xiaomi and Meituan have made the Fortune Global 500 list in 2023, continuing to demonstrate their leading positions globally.

CanSino Biologics, SinocellTech(SHSE:688520) and APT Medical(SHSE:688617) were selected for the SSE STAR 100 Index. This index selects 100 securities with medium market capitalization and good liquidity from the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR market.

Five portfolio companies won titles in the 2023 Growth50 List series launched by Yicai and CBNdata：Petkit - Growth Power Brand of the Year; Spes - Product Influence of the Year; Roborock, Xiaomi, Insta360 - Globalization Leadership Brand of the Year.

Six portfolio companies on being awarded 2023 Top 100 Companies with Innovation Value in International Business by business media CYZone. They are Mech-Mind Robotics in the Advanced Manufacturing category, Insta360, PEIKIT, NEIWAI, Focallure, and Roborocks in the Consumer category.

11 Qiming's portfolio companies have made China Entrepreneurs "2023 Future Stars" Award Series, including Abogene Bio and Insilico Medicine as Top 21 High-growth Innovative Companies; OriCell Therapeutics, Berry Genomics, Weiqiang Medical, Sunyur, Tungee Technology, etc. as New Power 100, and others.

Zai Lab, Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, CanSino Biologics and SinocellTech were selected for the 2023 Pharmaceutical Industry Competitiveness Top 100 List, released by CPEO and CHI Index.

Transwarp(SHSE:688031) has been selected as 2023 Best China Information Technology Application Database and one of the representative infrastructure software companies by The First New Voice. The company also made the "2023 IDC China's Financial IT Powerhouse" list.

Caidya won the CRO Leadership Awards in the Overall Capabilities category, a recognition of Caidya’s outstanding global capabilities.