Peide Biologics Secures Tens of Millions RMB in Pre-A Funding to Advance AI-Driven Peptide Drug Pipeline

On December 28, PDBio completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of yuan, led by the Sichuan Development Academician Fund and followed by institutions such as Huaxi Securities. This round of financing will mainly be used for the research and development of new peptide drug pipelines.

PDBio was founded in May 2021, constructing a hundred-million-level natural peptide library from venomous animals, based on a directional mining system for animal venom peptides.Through "High-Throughput + Cloud Computing" ScreeningSelect platforms and AI technologies to screen and develop peptide drugs.

The founding team consists of a postdoctoral fellow from the University of Liverpool, the former deputy director of the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Second Prize of the National Technology Invention Award.Researcher Rén LàiChief Scientist of the Company, National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Animal Polypeptide Drug CreationProfessor Rong MingqiangAs the chairman of the company and the head of the R&D team, Dr. Gu, the former R&D director of Jiuzhitang and executive president of Yingu Pharmaceutical, has more than 20 years of experience in new drug R&D transformation and commercial operation.Zhi XinAs the General Manager of the company, former President of Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research Institute's Minimally Invasive China, and Founder of Haibei Capital, with over 20 years of experience in AI and investment financing.Zhang LongAs the vice chairman of the company, jointly forming a management team that deeply integrates and complements advantages in "research + learning + production + finance."

PDBio will independently develop new peptide drugs for anti-infection and cardiovascular disease directions;Candidate drugs for other indications will be considered for transfer after reaching a certain stage of development.

PDBio has established a technical system for large-scale mining of active peptides from animal venom. It has currently collected more than 1,000 venomous animal species; using multi-omics technologies such as genomics, transcriptomics, and peptidomics to conduct omics analysis on venomous animal samples; then utilizing a functional peptide screening technology system to gather highly active peptide sequences.

Based on the survival strategies of venomous animals, functional drug components can be directionally mined from animals. According to clinical needs, active natural peptides can be screened from a peptide library without having to design peptide drug sequences and conformations from scratch based on target structures, which can shorten the R&D cycle. For example, during predation or defense, snakes secrete venom to paralyze prey or cause embolism in the prey. Based on this biological strategy, relevant peptides can be directionally mined for neurotoxins used in analgesia and functional substances that accelerate blood coagulation, which can be applied in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Currently, the company has selectively developed four candidate peptide new drugs, which are in the preclinical research stage; pipelines targeting acne, pulmonary fibrosis, and antithrombotic therapies are expected to file IND applications successively in the next couple of years.

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