Xiu Shi Biopharma Completed Angel Round Financing

Recently, Xiu Shi Biopharma ceutical (Nantong) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xiu Shi Biopharma ceutical") announced that it has completed a multi-million yuan angel round financing, with exclusive investment from Shicui Capital. The funds from this round of financing will be mainly used to enhance the company's innovative peptide biosynthesis technology platform and new product research and development, expand the production capacity of existing products, and promote the application and promotion of advantageous technologies and products domestically and internationally.

Regarding Peptides

Looking globally, the life science industry is showing unprecedented vitality, demonstrating enormous potential in addressing the health, environmental, and resource challenges facing human development.

With the gradual deepening of the division of labor in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry chain, the domestic CDMO industry has become relatively mature, with the market already in a "red ocean." In addition to the high concentration of traditional tracks such as small molecules and antibodies, many emerging tracks have also become hot in recent years, entering the global investors' field of vision.

One of the hot areas in global new drug development, the once overlooked, niche, high-profit peptide track is gradually becoming the next focus track in the CDMO industry that cannot be ignored. Over the past decade, the peptide track has seen the emergence of several "blockbuster" drugs, with GLP-1 agonists primarily used for type II diabetes and obesity treatment standing out. Currently, the hottest "internet celebrity drugs" on the market - Semaglutide, dulaglutide, Liraglutide, among others - are representative GLP-1 agonists, with global sales exceeding $16 billion in 2021.

Currently, some companies in China have begun to enter the field of peptide drug development and CDMO services. XiuShi Bio is one of the very few start-up companies that effectively utilize synthetic biology technology to address the challenges of industrializing peptide drugs.

"Xiu Shi Biopharma was established in 2020, with a core team composed of technical experts in pharmaceutical engineering, fermentation engineering, protein engineering, and other related fields. Leveraging rich practical experience in the field of biomanufacturing, we provide industry partners with innovative and highly attractive solutions for the biosynthesis of peptide drugs. Xiu Shi Biopharma's unique innovative biosynthesis strategy has been successfully validated on various short peptides and complex cyclic peptides, offering production capacity and cost advantages beyond traditional biological and chemical synthesis methods. This has led to development collaboration orders from numerous well-known pharmaceutical companies and CDMO enterprises. Xiu Shi Biopharma is committed to helping partners stay ahead in the discovery and production process of peptide drugs through innovative biosynthesis technology.

Regarding the investment logic behind this, Dr. Ning Chenxi from Scintilla Capital stated, "Peptide drugs are undoubtedly one of the hotspots in the field of new drug development, offering exciting possibilities for solving numerous complex diseases with their unique characteristics between large and small molecules. The outstanding market performance of a group of peptide drugs led by Semaglutide in recent years, as well as the rapid growth of PeptiDream, a leading company in the field of peptide drug discovery, strongly confirm this trend. Due to the nature of peptides being between large and small molecules, traditional biological and chemical synthesis methods cannot provide a perfect solution for the large-scale production of peptides. Xiu Shi Biopharma's novel biosynthesis system for peptide development offers a potential solution to the challenge of large-scale peptide production. This strategy is expected to overcome the two major challenges of capacity building and comprehensive production costs in the peptide field, and has already achieved large-scale validation on various types of peptides, receiving high recognition from downstream customers. We are delighted to collaborate with Xiu Shi Biopharma and look forward to witnessing the tremendous possibilities brought by innovative technology in the peptide field."

Wu Yinsong

"My ideal is to provide patients with high-quality and affordable drugs, truly improving their lives." This is a phrase that Wu Yinsong, the General Manager of Xiu Shi Biopharma Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., often mentions."

Wu Yinsong is a true native of Nantong. He entered the Ocean University of China in 2005 after passing the entrance exam in Rudong County and graduated with a Ph.D. from East China University of Science and Technology in 2017.

In 2013, Wu Yinsong participated in the research work of China's first microalgae bioenergy 973 project "Scientific Basis for Large-scale Preparation of Microalgae Energy" under the guidance of Professor Li Yuanguang from East China University of Science and Technology. Through practical exploration and accumulation, Wu Yinsong gained profound experience and insights into overcoming the difficulties of industrializing synthetic biology.

As a result, he planted the seed of scientific and technological entrepreneurship - using synthetic biology technology for pharmaceutical production.

Wu Yinsong and his team place great importance on the cycle and feasibility of commercial transformation. They hope to find a high-value-added field in synthetic biology that is advantageous for commercial transformation. Therefore, they are particularly cautious in selecting the track and category. After exploring many different directions, they ultimately chose the peptide and recombinant protein drug track.

Peptide drugs have become one of the hotspots in global new drug research and development, and the domestic peptide track is also rapidly developing. Innovative peptide drug enterprises such as Frontier Biotech are emerging; large pharmaceutical companies such as CR Pharmaceuticals, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, and Yangtze River Pharmaceuticals are entering the peptide drug industry.

However, compared to foreign countries, China's peptide track started late, and there are not many domestic peptide pharmaceutical companies, still in the stage of "hidden treasure." Wu Yinsong believes that the clinical demand and broad prospects of the peptide track make it advantageous to enter and lay out early to gain a first-mover advantage.

Currently, most peptide companies on the market use chemical synthesis methods, which have low synthesis efficiency and severe pollution. According to industry insiders, producing 1 kg of peptide can generate more than 10 tons of hazardous waste, leading to the high prices of currently marketed peptide drugs.

Before the establishment of Xiu Shi Biopharma, the founding team successfully used synthetic biology technology to achieve the biosynthesis of complex cyclic peptides, becoming the "first team in China to achieve large-scale biological preparation of complex structure short peptide drugs." Subsequently, they achieved efficient expression in other peptide drugs, responded to the national call to pioneer low-carbon and environmentally friendly production processes, solved traditional process bottlenecks, and truly practiced green innovation.

"Peptides are naturally suitable for synthetic biology industries." According to research at home and abroad, the process of manufacturing peptides by biological methods involves genetic engineering, protein engineering, enzyme engineering, fermentation engineering, and other fields of synthetic biology. Using synthetic biology technology is more conducive to reducing drug production costs and increasing production efficiency.

With an increasing number of projects in the pipeline, the gradual expiration of global drug patents, and the steady development of the market, at the end of 2020, with strong support from the Beigao New Area of Chongchuan City and the Talent Office, Wu Yinsong established Xiu Shi Biopharma Company.

The Future of Xiu Shi

China's synthetic biology started late and still has a significant gap compared to foreign countries, with even fewer applications in the peptide track. Xiu Shi Biopharma has become a leading innovative enterprise in this track, starting early. After establishing the company, Xiu Shi Biopharma has a clear strategy, focusing on the peptide field through technical advantages to steadily capture the market.

Compared to antibody drugs with similar structures and relatively fixed and uniform expression platforms, the development of peptide drugs is more challenging. This is due to significant differences in peptide molecules in terms of peptide chain length, structure, amino acid composition, etc., leading to higher difficulties in research and production. To save costs and reduce research risks, peptide drug companies often choose to collaborate with professional CRO/CDMO companies in the early stages of research and development.

However, the current CDMO service providers in the market often use chemical synthesis or classical genetic engineering methods, which generally have limitations such as high costs and low synthesis efficiency. Additionally, since peptide drugs differ significantly from traditional drugs in manufacturing processes, companies in this field are mostly specialized in peptide research and production, with few crossing over from small molecule or large molecule industries.

Xiu Shi Biopharma focuses on achieving green and low-carbon high-end pharmaceutical manufacturing using synthetic biology technology. However, there are not many precedents to follow in terms of successfully commercializing and transforming synthetic biology technology.

Xiu Shi Biopharma places great importance on the industrial application of technology and has already started considering downstream process issues in the biological design stage. "Whether it's chassis cells or fusion proteins, they must meet the requirements of our final drug quality and drug production scale. This is a starting point for our design and is also an aspect that is currently less considered in the domestic synthetic biology field," said Wu Yinsong.

"No precedent, create a precedent," Wu Yinsong said. With a strong determination, Wu Yinsong led the team to establish a protein engineering development platform based on rational design of genetic components with independent intellectual property rights. In less than two years, they completed the development of four high-end drug biomanufacturing processes and the green technology transformation of two pharmaceutical intermediates, reaching in-depth CDMO cooperation with multiple listed pharmaceutical companies.

To drive more high-quality research pipelines and meet market demands, Xiu Shi Biopharma conducted its first round of financing to expand production lines, increase research equipment, recruit high-level professional technical personnel, and enhance research investment in the underlying technology and product applications of synthetic biology.

There is still a significant gap in the treatment of basic chronic diseases between China and Western countries. Based on this, Wu Yinsong's team is committed to improving the accessibility of drugs for chronic disease patients by focusing on reducing the production costs of new drugs using biosynthesis.

Taking a drug for treating diabetes as an example, this drug currently has global sales close to $10 billion and is expensive. In the research and development of a new type 2 diabetes treatment drug, Wu Yinsong's team achieved a breakthrough in biosynthesis technology by screening, constructing, and testing hundreds of genetic components to design a cell factory with unique advantages. The yield is over 5 times that of traditional processes, making the technology a leader in China.

"We are currently the only company in China to achieve scale-up biomanufacturing technology for multi-disulfide bond short peptide drugs," Wu Yinsong said, expressing pride in the team's achievement.

In the near future, Xiu Shi Biopharma will continue to focus on improving the research and production platform for peptide drugs, expanding production capacity, collaborating with domestic leading companies, and opening the doors to the international market. Wu Yinsong stated: "Xiu Shi Biopharma will continue to focus on perfecting the research and production platform for peptide drugs, expanding production capacity, collaborating with domestic leading companies, and opening the doors to the international market."