ZSHK Laboratories Limited (hereinafter referred to as "ZSHK") recently announced the completion of 100 million yuan in Series A financing. This round of financing was led by Qiming Venture Partners and followed by Ascendum Capital. This round of financing will be mainly used for laboratory construction, introduction of high-end talents and business expansion.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, China, ZSHK is a one-stop R&D service platform with pre-clinical research and evaluation services of biomedicine and medical devices as its business focuses, providing services including pharmacologic and pharmacodynamic research, pharmacokinetics research and safety evaluation research.
The implementation of a number of incentive policies has given birth to the development of new pharmaceutical companies. However, due to the lack of funds and limited internal resources faced by start-ups in the early stages of development, most start-ups outsource part of their R&D work to third parties, which also catalyzes the rapid growth of Chinese CRO companies. According to the statistics of China Association for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Technology Exchange (CPDE), from 2016 to 2020, the scale of China's CRO market has grown rapidly from 46.5 billion yuan to 97.5 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 20.3%. It is expected that China's CRO industry will further expand to 116.5 billion yuan by 2021.
Preclinical research evaluation institutions are an important part of the process of transforming basic research into results. The core members of ZSHK have worked closely with top domestic universities and research institutes for 20 years; presided over and participated in more than ten research projects of the National Major Science and Technology Project "Major New Drug Creation" under the "Eleventh Five-Year", "Twelfth Five-Year", and "Thirteenth Five-Year" plans, and accumulated a wealth of basic research transformation experience. ZSHK is a high-quality strategic partner of domestic and foreign universities and research institutes.
ZSHK has strong scientific capabilities and a high level of quality assurance. The company has established independent laboratories in Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, Pingshan District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, and Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiangsu Province. At the same time, it is also actively deploying supply chain construction to meet the hierarchical and multi-faceted requirements of different customers in different regions for the research and development of drugs and medical devices.
Currently, the preclinical drug evaluation service laboratory of ZSHK in Suzhou Industrial Park has been put into operation. The drug evaluation laboratory in Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (as the only one preclinical drug safety evaluation organization in Hong Kong), and the evaluation laboratory for new drugs and medical devices in Pingshan District, Shenzhen, will be officially launched in the second half of this year.
Dr. Li Ming, founder and CEO of ZSHK, said: "China is currently in a stage of rapid development, and the reserves of scientific research talents and technologies often lag behind the development needs of enterprises. Judging from the current development stage, CRO companies that can provide one-stop services are often more favored by start-up pharmaceutical companies. ZSHK has a senior business team with an "integration system" in this field. It hopes to support the R&D and innovation work of domestic and foreign pharmaceutical and medical device companies and continue to build by leveraging the team's 20-year experience in preclinical drug evaluation. And the company's characteristic research and development service capabilities will be strengthened to become an international enterprise that integrates all-round research and development services such as pre-clinical evaluation of drugs and medical devices, domestic and foreign registration and application services, drug and medical device clinical research services, and global patent licensing legal services. ”
Qiming Venture Partners Managing Partner Liang Yuyu said: “CRO services for preclinical safety evaluation have barriers to enter and can only be carried out in professional GLP laboratories, with various qualification certifications that require considerable, long-lasting efforts to acquire. A professional team with rich experience is a scarce resource in the pre-clinical CRO industry. In recent years, the growth rate of China's CRO industry has been around 20%, significantly higher than the global growth rate. R&D enterprises, investment institutions and local governments all have fully realized the important enabling and basic supporting role of CRO in drug and medical device R&D innovation. ZSHK has a full-process, integrated pharmaceutical R&D service capability and technology platform, and the market prospect is very broad. ”
Shao Ying, founder of Ascendum Capital, said: “China's pharmaceutical R&D industry is in an era of vigorous development and maturity, and the demand for CROs with professional service capabilities will continue to increase. ZSHK not only has a first-class team and profound industry experience, but also has a leading advantage in the stage of drug safety assessment, and can quickly build a complete, advanced and professional GLP laboratory. We believe that ZSHK will grow rapidly under the background of the great development of innovative drugs in China, become bigger and stronger, and become a high-level preclinical CRO with international standards. ”
About Qiming Venture Partners
Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners has established offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Hong Kong, Seattle, Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages nine USD funds and six RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching US$5.9 billion. Since its establishment, it has focused on investing in outstanding companies in the early and growing stages of TMT, Healthcare and other industries. Up to now, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in more than 380 fast-growing innovative companies, of which more than 130 are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Taiwan OTC, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange. More than 40 companies have become industry-recognized unicorns and super unicorns through IPOs, mergers and other exits.
About Ascendum Capital
Ascendum Capital is a cutting-edge medical fund established in 2020, focused on investing in innovative medical devices, biomedicine and related technologies. The company's team is jointly established by senior professionals in the medical field and investment field. It is committed to promoting the development of the health industry, and is committed to finding innovative medical products and technologies around the world to help its product development and implementation in the Chinese market. The vision is to be a powerful enabler of innovative medical products and companies.
