Jiyin Biotech Secures Tens of Millions in Seed Funding to Advance Affordable, Universal Cell Therapies for Cancer

VCBeat learned that recently,Shenzhen Jiyin Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiyin Bio") has completed a seed financing round worth tens of millions of yuan.Led by HCC Capital and followed by EF Capital. This round of financing is mainly used for the company's team building, early development of the iCAR-NK pipeline series products, optimization and upgrade of the core technology platform, and external cooperation.

Jiyin Bio is an innovative company dedicated to providing affordable, universal cell therapy drugs for cancer patients. In recent years, cancer treatment technology has made significant progress. Particularly, new tumor immunotherapy technologies represented by CAR-T have achieved good clinical efficacy.

However, considering the prices of marketed CAR-T products, those abroad are priced at around $400,000, while the two marketed products in China are priced at 1.2 million and 1.29 million yuan, respectively. The high cost makes it difficult for patients to afford and also limits CAR-T products from entering medical insurance.

The reason for the high cost of CAR-T lies in its "one-to-one" personalized preparation process, and the "one-to-many" universal cell therapy is the inevitable choice to reduce the price of tumor immunotherapy drugs.Jiyin Bio focuses on the development of universal cell therapies, committed to providing accessible and affordable tumor immunotherapy products for ordinary patients covered by medical insurance.

The core members of JiYin Bio team have more than ten years of experience in IPS, immune cell differentiation, CAR-T industrialization, process development, quality control, and registration submission. Currently, JiYin Bio owns three universal cell therapy technology platforms, including:

(1) Adult CAR-NK preparation platform, which solves the two major problems of difficult NK cell transfer and expansion, enabling efficient preparation of peripheral blood-derived CAR-NK;
(2) IPS-sourced CAR-NK preparation platform: The team has mastered the key technologies of IPS induction, NK differentiation, and CAR molecule construction and introduction.
(3) In vivo CAR-T/M preparation technology: The team has already made advance arrangements for in vivo CAR preparation technology, possessing a unique in vivo gene delivery technology platform. Currently, they are verifying the preparation and functionality of in vivo CAR-T/M.

In the future, the JiYin Bio team will focus on developing IPS-derived CAR-NK and in vivo CAR-T/M related product pipelines, providing effective tumor immunotherapy products for patients with hematologic tumors and even solid tumors, while significantly reducing current treatment costs.

For this round of financing,Dr. Huang Ke, Founder of JiYin BiotechExpressed: "We are very grateful for the recognition and support from professional investment institutions. Especially, both parties have reached a high consensus on the development philosophy of biopharmaceutical enterprises, agreeing that ‘innovation’ should be the most important trait for a biopharmaceutical enterprise in the future. On November 19, 2021, the CDE released the 'Guiding Principles for Clinical Development of Anti-Tumor Drugs Oriented by Clinical Value,' addressing issues currently faced in China's innovative drug development, such as 'explosive growth in clinical trials for innovative drugs陷入陷入同质化内卷'; it also pointed out the direction for the future development of biopharmaceutical enterprises, which is 'the higher goal of new drug development should be to provide patients with better (more effective, safer, or more convenient, etc.) treatment options,' meaning transitioning from Me-too and Me-better to BIC (Best-in-class) and FIC (First-in-class) stages. Meanwhile, with the continuous advancement of medical insurance negotiations and centralized procurement, only innovative pharmaceutical companies with differentiated competitive capabilities will have greater room for survival and development. Jiyin Biotechnology always adheres to the concept that 'innovation is the primary driving force for enterprise development' and remains steadfast in our development direction of providing affordable, universal BIC/FIC drugs for patients."

Dr. Qi Wei, Partner of Co-creation CapitalStated: "We are optimistic about the enormous potential of universal cell therapies. Among the various technological approaches for universal immune treatment products, JiinBio's solution has a significant competitive advantage and represents a necessary path for cell therapy to truly move towards widespread clinical application. The JiinBio team has years of comprehensive foundational technology reserves and a unique technical platform in areas such as IPS differentiation, creating a core barrier for the company through innovative technology. We look forward to seeing Jiin rapidly develop cost-effective and highly efficacious cell therapy products that will benefit patients worldwide."

Zhou Qinyong, Deputy General Manager and Director of Efung CapitalStated: "The Jiyin Biotech team has strong independent research and development capabilities as well as continuous innovation ability, and has established several globally leading key technology platforms. In addition to mastering the foundational IPS induction and differentiation technology relatively early in China, they have quickly and comprehensively broken through key technologies such as CAR molecular construction and gene vector delivery, and have also built a revolutionary in vivo gene delivery technology system. We look forward to Jiyin Biotech bringing more effective therapeutic products to clinics and patients."

HCC Capital focuses on early-stage venture capital investments in the fields of electronic information (ICT) and healthcare, with an emphasis on domestic substitution. It primarily invests in technology innovation enterprises, especially high-tech innovation companies that break through key "bottleneck" technologies. With strong technical foresight and market acumen, the HCC team has invested in nearly a hundred promising high-tech innovation companies globally. It has repeatedly won awards such as Zero2IPO's "Most Investment Potential Institution in China," ChinaVenture's "Best Domestic Venture Capital Institution," "Best Venture Capital Institution in China," and "Best Venture Capital Institution in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area."

Yifeng Capital is one of the earliest professional investment institutions in the biopharmaceutical industry in China, with an investment team composed of PhDs in biopharmaceuticals from top universities both domestically and internationally. Focused on global biopharmaceutical VC/PE investments, it has successfully facilitated IPO listings for over 10 biopharmaceutical companies including Chipscreen Biosciences, Frontier Biotechnologies, Ascentage Pharma, Athenex, Pulnovo Medical, and Hycan Biotechnology. It has been awarded "Top 30 Healthcare Investment Institutions in China" by Zero2IPO, "Top 20 Best Biopharmaceutical Investment Institutions" by ChinaVenture, and "Top 10 Best Exit Cases" by ChinaVenture.