HiSight Medical Completes Nearly RMB 100 Million New Financing Round to Accelerate Clinical Trials of China's First Domestic MIGS Products and Build a Comprehensive Product Portfolio

VCBeat recently learned that HSGD (Suzhou) Biomedical Technology Co., Ltd. ("HSGD"), an innovative medical device company in the field of Micro-Invasive Glaucoma Surgery (MIGS), has completed a new round of financing worth nearly 100 million RMB.This round of financing was led by Delian Capital, with participation from Rongquan Capital and Huahong Capital. Existing shareholders Boyuan Capital and TF Capital continued to invest. VCBeat served as the exclusive financial advisor.This round of financing is mainly used to advance the company's minimally invasive glaucoma product, MicroCOGO.^®And PassCOGO^®The national multi-center clinical trial in China, while accelerating the research and development, clinical applications, and production implementation of other multi-pipeline ophthalmic innovative products.

Glaucoma is the leading irreversible blinding disease in humans. According to data from the "Chinese Glaucoma Guidelines (2020)," the number of people worldwide with primary glaucoma exceeded 76 million in 2020, with over 21 million patients in China, making it the country with the highest number of glaucoma patients. Eye health has been elevated to a national strategic priority since the "13th Five-Year Plan" in 2016. The "14th Five-Year Plan" in 2022 specifically emphasized strengthening the prevention and treatment of key eye diseases among targeted populations, explicitly pointing out the need to enhance early diagnosis and treatment capabilities for glaucoma. With the acceleration of population aging and rising public health awareness,The future glaucoma diagnosis and treatment market has enormous growth potential.

Currently, the treatment measures for glaucoma in China are still mainly based on medication and surgery. Common issues include drug efficacy drift, poor compliance, inadequate intraocular pressure control, significant surgical trauma, extensive damage to the normal structure and function of the eye, and complex complications. According to current diagnostic and treatment methods, more than 5.6 million of the over 20 million patients will suffer permanent blindness.MIGS, with its excellent safety, effectiveness, good compliance, and prognosis, has become a new trend in glaucoma treatment after rapid development in recent years. Especially internationally, it has been widely applied as an emerging method for glaucoma treatment, bringing new hope to glaucoma patients.

HSGD, founded in September 2020, has undergone rapid development in recent years,HSGD has now become the domestic enterprise with the most comprehensive product pipeline in the MIGS field and the first local company to enter the multi-center clinical trial stage in China. The HSGD team possesses industry-leading industrialization experience and clinical resources.It has gathered a group of elite talents from well-known companies in related fields such as Medtronic, MicroPort Medical, and Philips, and has established extensive and close cooperation with first-line clinical experts from top domestic ophthalmology hospitals such as Shanghai ENT Hospital, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center Affiliated to Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and the Eye Center of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University.

The new generation of MIGS has entered a period of rapid development after the FDA approved a series of products represented by iStent inject in 2018. In the past four years, more than a million glaucoma patients worldwide have undergone MIGS product implantation, and MIGS has become a mainstream surgical procedure overseas. Currently, in the Chinese market, the only new-generation MIGS-related product available is XEN, under the international biopharmaceutical giant AbbVie, which was launched in China through real-world data research in Hainan in 2020. HSGD, as the leading enterprise in the field of new-generation MIGS in China, is targeting the huge and unmet clinical needs domestically.Has built a complete product matrix, accelerating the breakthrough of a new generation of MIGS-related products in China. The MicroCOGO developed by the company^®The micro-stent for trabecular meshwork is currently the smallest Class III implant to enter the clinical stage by a local company in China. The company is also the first innovative medical device enterprise in China to mass-produce and enter the clinical trial stage for a new generation of MIGS products.

Dr. Peng Zhao, founder of HSGD, stated:China has a large population of glaucoma patients. As a chronic disease that still cannot be cured, the vast majority of patients can retain their vision function for life through early detection and appropriate treatment. With the introduction and implementation of China's "14th Five-Year Plan" for national eye health goals, more and more professionals in the field are committed to improving the visual health and diagnostic and treatment standards of the Chinese people. Among these efforts, the rapid development of the new generation of MIGS procedures, which are less invasive, safer, and have an extremely low learning curve for doctors, has become an important direction and trend internationally. HSGD's forward-looking layout in this field and the launch of multi-center clinical trials across China are expected to accelerate benefits for numerous glaucoma patients in China.

Delian Capital's Li Zhongbao stated:China performs nearly 6 million minimally invasive surgeries annually in the fields of myopia and cataracts, but has long lacked efficient, safe, and easily promotable minimally invasive treatments for glaucoma. The next-generation MIGS products developed by HSGD significantly broaden the pool of suitable patients due to their excellent safety and efficacy. This type of product has already become one of the mainstream procedures overseas, with nearly 300,000 such surgeries performed annually in the United States. With the introduction of favorable policies such as the "14th Five-Year Plan" for eye health, MIGS is rapidly developing in China and is expected to become a细分赛道 for the next million-level surgeries. The HSGD team possesses extensive industrialization experience and clinical resources, and has developed multiple next-generation MIGS products that are easy for doctors to operate and cover early, middle, and late stages based on national conditions. Within less than two years of the company's establishment, despite the severe challenges posed by the pandemic, HSGD was the first in China to advance locally produced next-generation MIGS products into the clinical stage, gaining recognition from many top ophthalmology clinical experts in China, demonstrating strong execution and product capabilities. We look forward to the company continuing to provide more innovative diagnostic and treatment products for glaucoma patients in China.

Zhang Yumeng from Rongquan Capital stated:We are very optimistic about HSGD's future development prospects in the field of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS). The company is a leader in this field. China has the largest number of glaucoma patients in the world, with low diagnostic rates and unsatisfactory treatment outcomes using current methods, resulting in over 20% of patients eventually going blind. Given the vast unmet clinical needs, the future market potential is enormous. MIGS represents a new treatment approach, typically performed in an outpatient setting, where incisions smaller than 3mm significantly reduce tissue damage and eliminate the need for sutures. In the United States, MIGS has become a primary treatment method for glaucoma, with the company’s对标product already having over 200,000 implantations annually in the U.S., establishing itself as a mainstream treatment for glaucoma. Ophthalmic implants are extremely small in size, requiring micron-level precision in peripheral dimensions, which demands exceptionally high manufacturing standards. HSGD's three-dimensional ultra-precision micron-level processing capabilities in the field of implantable medical devices are exceedingly rare in the market. Most members of the HSGD team have extensive experience working at top-tier medical device companies both domestically and internationally, possess deep technical expertise and understanding, and demonstrate strong execution capabilities. Their ability to bring products to clinical trials in such a short time and gain widespread recognition from leading ophthalmologists in China is impressive.

Delian Capital, founded in 2011, has always focused on technology and innovative healthcare sectors. It primarily targets early-stage technological innovation projects, covering sub-sectors such as semiconductors, intelligent equipment, cloud-native, new therapies, and IBAT. It has invested in more than a hundred projects, including: Dei Microelectronics, Xinzhou Technology, Nanjing Hongtai, Yingchuang Huizhi, Lox Technology, Mech-Mind Robotics, Fit2Cloud, Venus Medtech, Amunix, HiFiBiO, ZhiShan Weixin, ChenAn Biotech, etc.

Since 2015, Rongquan Capital has established a reliable ecosystem with strong strategic funding through a "fund of funds + direct investment" business model. Focusing on the internationalization of technology and life sciences, it provides integrated financial services both within and outside of China, with a cumulative investment scale of nearly 8 billion yuan.

TF Capital Focuses on Venture Investment in the Life Sciences Sector, Primarily Investing in Promising Early-Stage and Growth-Stage Enterprises. Through Diversified and Strategic Layouts, TF Capital Selects High-Quality Partners to Seize Opportunities Amid the Rapid Development of China’s Life Sciences. The Investment Team Possesses Years of Experience and Industry Resources in These Fields, Hoping to Achieve Rapid Growth Together with Invested Enterprises.