BDgene Therapeutics Nets ￥60M in Series A round

(VCBeat) Apr. 12, 2021 -- Shanghai BDgene Technology Co., Ltd. ("BDgene Therapeutics"), the world's leading gene therapy developer with its original delivery technology, has picked up 60 million yuan in Series A funding round, led by Tsinghua Holdings Capital, with participation from Ennovation Ventures, Longmen Capital, Emerging Technology Partners and Innoangel Fund. Probe Capital served as the sole financial advisor. The funding will be used for preclinical and clinical development for multiple products, and laboratory and team construction.

BDgene Therapeutics previously received a strategic investment from Saifu Pharmaceutical in June 2019 and tens of millions of yuan from  Triumph Venture Capital in the Pre-Series A funding round in March 2020.

BDgene Therapeutics was founded in 2018. The founders of the company include top scientists in the field of gene therapy, industrial experts with international pharmaceutical backgrounds, and experts of toxicology with preclinical drug evaluation experience. The consultant team includes experts from the "Thousand Talents Program", clinicians from grade III level A hospitals, gene therapy and immunology experts from the world's top 100 universities, and senior managers from listed pharmaceutical companies.

BDgene Therapeutics has successfully developed a clinically proven mRNA delivery platform -- VLP-mRNA (the viroid-like particle delivery system of mRNA), in recent years, to deliver CRISPR/Cas9 mRNA to realize safe and controllable gene editing in vivo.

In early November 2020, BDgene Therapeutics successfully completed the world's second clinical study of CRISPR gene therapy (Zhang Feng's team completed the world's first clinical study in March 2020), which is also the world's first clinical study of CRISPR-based antiviral therapy. At present, Professor Hong Jiaxu's team is conducting a safe and controllable clinical trial based on this technology in the early stage. In the future, the technology could be applied in treatments in other viral infections, eye diseases and neurological diseases.

THC is a Beijing-based private equity investment fund with a focus on high-end technology, industrials and healthcare. The fund has grown steadily since its inception in 2007 when it was operating as Tsinghua Holdings Group's specialized PE investment arm, focusing on discovering and investing in China's leading enterprises in high growth business sectors such as industrials, TMT and entertainment. The company has over RMB 10billion in assets under management.

Ennovation Ventures established in 2015, currently manages more than 1.5 billion RMB across 4 funds, and has offices in Shanghai and Nanjing. Its investment team focuses on business with high growth potentials, sustainable business models and strong entrepreneurial management teams. The company prefers to invest in both early-stage companies in biologics, medical devices and diagnostics.