NeoX Biotech Files IPO Prospectus: AI-Driven Drug Design Pioneer Strengthens Leadership with Dr. Taylor Guo as CSO

By a twist of fate, a lecture held at the Peking University Clinical Research Institute a year ago marked the beginning of Dr. Guo Bingshi's connection with neoX Biotech.

Dr. Guo Bingshi

Dr. Taylor Guo Bingshi isOne of the co-founders of I-Mab, as the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), has driven and witnessed the rapid development of I-Mab from a founding biotech to a transitioning biopharma.Taylor previously worked at the China R&D Center of multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), where he served as the leader of multiple global innovation projects. He has made significant achievements in drug discovery, preclinical research, and translational medicine, particularly in target insights and project management. His experience at I-Mab further enriched his expertise in cross-departmental collaborations such as investment and financing, business development, international multicenter clinical trials, and CRO management, as well as external cooperation.

At present,Dr. Guo Bingshi has joined neoX Biotech full-time as the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). He will lead the company’s R&D team in building and strengthening both short-term and long-term product pipelines, while providing scientific guidance and strategic direction. Additionally, Dr. Guo Bingshi will also head the business development team to expand global operations and comprehensively advance the strategic upgrade of neoX Biotech.

In March 2021, during a lecture at the Peking University Clinical Research Institute, Dr. Wang Zhengyi (Jerry), then Vice President of R&D at I-Mab Biopharma, was presenting an academic sharing on differentiated antibody development. The audience listened attentively. After the lecture, one attendee eagerly approached Dr. Wang Zhengyi, discussed their team's ongoing projects and grand vision, and expressed strong interest in I-Mab’s drug research model, hoping to learn more.

This listener is Dr. Liu Fan, the co-founder and CTO of neoX Biotech.neoX Biotech, as a computation-driven pharmaceutical company, has a team that excels in computational chemistry, computational biophysics, and structural biology. They aim to provide innovative drug discovery from a unique computational design perspective. Dr. Fan Liu has been actively exploring new target insights and understanding industry development trends. During this in-depth learning process, he developed a strong interest in the strategic layout of I-Mab's innovative drug research and development. Against this backdrop, Dr. Fan Liu specifically attended the sharing session by Dr. Zhengyi Wang at the Peking University Clinical Research Institute.

"This lecture was highly rewarding for Dr. Liu Fan. 'I was extremely excited listening to Jerry share how highly differentiated innovative antibodies are screened from scratch at I-Mab Biopharma and how they are upgraded to meet the future demands of large molecule biologics R&D,' recalled Dr. Liu Fan. 'The opportunities and challenges in large molecule biologics R&D that I-Mab Biopharma is focusing on are exactly where our neoX Biotech can provide value. I immediately approached Jerry to explain what we at neoX Biotech are currently working on, feeling there’s potential for us to collaborate.'"

In fact, the invited speaker for the lecture was Dr. Guo Bingshi, but due to unforeseen circumstances, he delegated Dr. Wang Zhengyi to attend. Upon returning, Dr. Wang was informed, "There was a very active listener whose work closely aligns with what we are interested in doing. They showed great interest and expressed a desire to further discuss potential collaboration."In the first week after the lecture in Beijing, Dr. Po-Shi Guo met with Dr. Hang Chen and Dr. Fan Liu, the co-founders and CEO of neoX Biotech, for the first time in Shanghai. The interests of both teams were highly aligned.，and even before any commercial terms were signed, both parties had already started to push forward with ideas., leveraging neoX Biotech's unique AI drug design platform technology, has made rapid and unexpected progress. Soon, I-Mab Biopharma and neoX Biotech signed a collaborative development agreement,In-depth collaboration on up to 10 innovative large-molecule new drug projects。

In April 2022, Dr. Bingshi Guo left I-Mab and officially joined neoX Biotech.

neoX Biotech, established in 2018, is a biotechnology company that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), biophysics, and high-throughput experiments to innovate in the research and development of biomacromolecules and multi-specificity molecular drugs. The company’s pipeline primarily focuses on the fields of oncology and immunotherapy.

Dr. Guo Bingshi said about joining neoX Biotech: "After learning about neoX Biotech, I realized it is a platform empowered by AI to compute protein interactions. This is not a static structure but an upgraded dynamic one that can be used for drug design, applicable to both large and small molecules, and holds unique advantages especially in innovative modality fields. After understanding the concept and strengths behind neoX Biotech, I found the platform where I can fulfill my 'dream' and do what I want to do."

Curiosity is the driving force behind scientific research.Dr. Guo Bing is a scientist with great curiosity in emerging fields. During his undergraduate studies, immunology was Taylor's most interested subject. Taylor mentioned that Dr. Zang Jingwu has been the mentor of his career, and for twenty years, he has followed Dr. Zang Jingwu to conduct doctoral research in the field of immunology at the Shanghai Institute of Health of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, then entered the GSK China R&D Center, and later joined I-Mab Biopharma.

During the establishment of GSK's R&D center in China, Taylor welcomed Dr. John Elliott, the VP of Medicinal Chemistry who had just been sent to the China R&D center by GSK headquarters. While touring the science museum, they envisioned a future where the structure of any protein could be predicted and displayed holographically in three dimensions, much like in the sci-fi series *Star Trek*. They imagined being able to look at these structures to design drugs and understand how proteins interact with each other. Now that Dr. Elliott has passed away, recalling the scene from 15 years ago, Taylor is filled with deep emotion:From that point on, he had a "dream": Could drugs be designed more rationally rather than merely based on screening?。

Currently,neoX Biotech's pipeline is built around two major technology platforms: the "Large Molecule Protein Interaction Platform" and the "Small Molecule PROTAC Technology Platform."In the small molecule field, neoX Biotech focuses on developing a universal method for designing PROTAC degraders. Its computational platform optimizes "target protein-PROTAC-E3 ligase" ternary complexes by designing protein-protein interfaces and virtually generating PROTAC compound libraries, enabling more efficient design of lead compounds. Dr. Guo Bingshi pointed out that after the parallel development of these two technology platforms, they will synergistically intersect to advance the research and development of biomacromolecules and PROTAC conjugated drugs with tissue and tumor targeting.

In the entire pharmaceutical field, the application of AI technology to assist in the design and development of small molecule drugs is more common, but there are very few AI pharmaceutical companies focused on large molecule development. This is not only because small molecule drugs have more data accumulation compared to large molecules, but also because the technical barriers for large molecule drug development based on AI technology are higher, and the hard power of the development team is crucial. neoX Biotech is the first biotechnology company in China that can develop small molecule drugs based on computational chemistry and also develop large molecule drugs based on deep characterization of protein-protein interactions (PPI).

On the other hand, solving problems is the capability of AI pharmaceutical companies as a technology platform, but posing the right questions is something that most AI pharmaceutical companies cannot do. Compared with other AI pharmaceutical companies,The Ability of neoX Biotech to "Pose Questions", and this issue is of concern to biologists, being a pain point in the drug development industry, which is exactly what makes it stand out among many AI pharmaceutical companies.

neoX Biotech's neoX proposes questions about drug targets that are highly consistent with Dr. Guo Bing's thoughts. They can keenly observe the direction of drug development, identifying which directions are worth pursuing and which are not. Rather than merely solving problems, they delve deeper to discover and pose questions at a more fundamental level.This precisely aligns with neoX Biotech's longstanding positioning as a next-generation biopharmaceutical company that internalizes AI computing capabilities., rather than AI service companies. Based on this strategic layout, neoX Biotech not only advances its own innovative pipeline to the clinical stage but has also engaged in in-depth drug development collaborations with several pharmaceutical companies such as I-Mab and Biocytogen, jointly developing innovative pipelines.

The future is full of infinite possibilities, based on neoX Biotech's "AI + Biophysics + High-Throughput Experiment"A cutting-edge drug development platform that integrates three key components, combined with Dr. Guo Bingshi’s expertise in drug discovery, will allow the company to start from the early stages of drug development, gain insights into targets, and create new drugs." "I have always been passionate about working on the front end. If you imagine the final drug product as a car, the early-stage research and development is the engine. In the past, it was fueled by gasoline, but now it's electric, powered by high-density batteries. The concept and approach to engines have changed entirely. From a paradigm shift perspective, everyone now accepts that all types of vehicles can be powered by electricity."We, neoX Biotech, aspire to become the Tesla of the pharmaceutical industry, leveraging AI capabilities from the ground up to put AI-computed drug designs on the map."Dr. Guo Bingshi said, 'We also look forward to establishing partnerships with more innovative pharmaceutical companies worldwide, utilizing AI computing as a new engine to drive the innovation of drug pipelines from the source, ultimately benefiting patients.'"