On October 14, 2021 Neowise Biotechnology reported the company had completed Series A financing (Press release, Neowise Biotechnology, OCT 14, 2021, View Source [SID1234638951]). This round of financing was led by Taifu Capital and followed by Sinopharm Capital. This round of financing will be mainly used for the research and development of TCR-T immune cell therapy products, process development and the construction of GMP production workshops. Previously, Xinjing Zhiyuan has received angel round financing from Baidu Venture Capital and Baitu Biotechnology. In the one year since its establishment, Xinjing Zhiyuan’s cumulative financing amount has exceeded 100 million yuan.
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In recent years, cellular immunotherapy technology has developed rapidly, setting off a wave of cancer treatment. T cell immunotherapy is a hot field in cellular immunotherapy. In particular, CAR-T therapy has achieved remarkable results in the clinical treatment of blood cancer diseases. However, for solid tumors, which account for more than 90% of cancers, the industry generally believes that TCR-T cell therapy that can specifically recognize tumor intracellular antigens has greater therapeutic potential. However , how to provide patients with TCR-T cell therapy drugs quickly, accurately and effectively is a major pain point that plagues the development of the industry.
Against this background, Xinjingzhiyuan came into being in Suzhou BioBAY at the end of 2020, focusing on the development and industrialization of TCR-T cell therapy drugs for solid tumors . The company was co-founded by three Ph.D.s in the biomedical field who returned from the United States to start their own businesses full-time. The team members come from top universities such as California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University.
Dr. Peng Songming, founder and CEO of Xinjing Zhiyuan, was the first to directly isolate T cells capable of identifying the patient’s tumor from a tumor patient’s blood sample in 2016 while working at the California Institute of Technology, and participated in the founding of the company as one of the scientific founders. PACT Pharma, a tumor neoantigen cell therapy company, leads the R&D team to carry out personalized immunotherapy product development, IND filing and phase I clinical work. The company has received more than US$200 million in financing.
Relying on the rich experience of the founding team, Xinjing Zhiyuan hopes to analyze a large number of patient samples through independently developed high-throughput antigen-antigen receptor screening technology, thereby establishing the world’s largest antigen-antigen receptor paired relationship database (Paired Antigen- TCR library). Based on this database, Xinjing Zhiyuan can quickly select antigen receptors (TCRs) that accurately recognize solid tumors, edit, amplify and functionally identify tumor patients’ T cells, and infuse back the highly specific antigen receptors that recognize the patient’s tumor surface antigens. T cells, thereby achieving the goal of treating tumors and bringing good news to the majority of patients with solid tumors.
At present, Xinjing Zhiyuan has formed an experienced R&D team and established a R&D base in Suzhou. It has initially completed the verification of the high-throughput antigen-antigen receptor screening technology platform and begun to accumulate TCR sequences that specifically recognize tumor antigens. It has established close cooperative relationships with several well-known tertiary hospitals; at the same time, the company is also actively developing TCR-T production processes and preparing to build GMP plants to support the clinical development of subsequent pipelines.
Jiang Xiangren, managing partner of Taifu Capital , said: "Cell therapy is bringing more breakthrough therapies to patients at an unprecedented speed. The founding team of Xinjing Zhiyuan has built the world’s leading discovery platform for TCR-T cell therapy drugs. And it can well solve some key common problems in the current industrialization of TCR-T cell therapy. Taifu Capital highly recognizes Xinjing Zhiyuan’s innovative capabilities and company vision, and hopes to combine Taifu’s industrial resources and industry understanding to help the company’s development development to bring new breakthrough therapies to patients with solid tumors as quickly as possible."
Wu Aimin, founding partner of Sinopharm Capital, said: "TCR-T cell therapy has shown good potential in the treatment of solid tumors and has considerable clinical and commercial value. However, its screening barriers are high and the technology is difficult. We are highly optimistic about Xinjing Zhiyuan. The team’s global vision and R&D capabilities in this field integrate upstream bioinformatics analysis, midstream high-throughput screening, and downstream platform verification, greatly improving the success rate of R&D. We are confident that it will benefit patients in the future!"
Liu Wei, CEO of Baitu Biotechnology, said: "The breakthroughs achieved by Xinjing Zhiyuan in the past year have exceeded our expectations. Focusing on the highly expressed HLA subtypes in the Chinese population, the company has completed hundreds of pMHC-TCR tests in the past year. pairs, and in the process establish a high-throughput computing and experimental platform from discovery to verification. As an investor and strategic partner, we look forward to bringing more clinical resources and computing resources to the company, and strive to work with the company Build the world’s largest T cell antigen-antigen receptor database, improve the accuracy of current TCR-T AI design, and turn the "needle in the haystack" of solid tumor TCR-T drug discovery into "finding the picture."