Recently, NEWISH, a Chinese company specializing in the research and development of new drugs for early cancer treatment, announced that it had completed a Pre-B+ round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan in February 2024. This round was led by V Capital Co., Ltd., and the funds will mainly be used to advance the clinical trials of two nucleic acid-based tumor vaccines (Class 1 new drugs) developed on the company’s STARi platform, as well as to support the development and registration of its next-generation innovative product pipeline. This marks the second significant capital injection for NEWISH in a short period, following a 50-million-yuan Pre-B round completed at the end of last year.
It is reported that NEWISH focuses on the development of First-in-Class Category I new drugs with fully independent intellectual property rights. It has now jointly established a core technology platform with Academician Jiang Jiandong: the STARi (Super Targeting Activated Response of Immunization, a nucleic acid drug development platform for super-targeted activation of T-cell immune responses). This platform employs a strategy of linking chemokines to enhance targeted T-cell immunity, aiming to develop a new generation of cancer vaccines.
The R&D team of NEWISH possesses a global vision, professional backgrounds in biology, medicine, and pharmacy, as well as extensive industry experience. Dr. Liu Defang and Dr. Qi Hailong, recognized as "Science and Technology Rising Stars" talents in Beijing, serve as the company's core technology leaders. Together with a team of more than ten high-caliber postdoctoral researchers/doctors and a group of senior industry experts with rich experience in medical registration, they have obtained over 40 invention patents for the company in areas such as cell and gene therapy, nucleic acid drugs, and cancer vaccines. The team has also published six SCI papers related to the company’s products. NEWISH’s self-developed projects have received significant special funding from the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, laying a solid foundation for the company’s continuous innovation and R&D.
Zhao Jianghua, Managing Director of V Capital Co., Ltd., stated: The founding team of NEWISH is compact and efficient, highly executable, and possesses a deep industry background and outstanding innovation capabilities. They are adept at utilizing limited resources to create maximum value in the shortest time. Committed to independent research and development, they are not followers internationally but pioneers in breakthroughs in chemokine-activated immune technology, ushering in a new era for nucleic acid drugs.