Helixon Therapeutics, Inc. Files IPO Prospectus Following $10M+ Angel Round Backed by Tsinghua University
Helixon
AI Technology New Drug Developer
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a public land-grant research university located in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois. As the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system, it was founded in 1867. The campus boasts some of the finest academic resources in the world. The university library system holds one of the largest collections among public universities globally, with over 14 million volumes across more than 20 unit libraries. Its online catalog receives 53 million visits annually. Students have access to thousands of computer terminals in classrooms, residence halls, and campus libraries for instructional, study, and research purposes. Our faculty includes recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Fields Medal. The achievements of our alumni match those of our faculty: 11 alumni are Nobel laureates, and an additional 18 have won Pulitzer Prizes. As a major arts hub, the campus attracts dozens of renowned domestic and international artists each year to the critically acclaimed Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The university also supports two major museums—the Krannert Art Museum and the Kienbusch Gallery—as well as the Spurlock Museum, which showcases world history and culture.Other key facilities include the multi-purpose State Farm Center (16,500 seats); Memorial Stadium (70,000 seats), home to Big Ten Conference football games; and the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC), one of the largest recreational facilities on any university campus. For nearly 150 years, the University of Illinois has remained committed to providing our undergraduates with a truly transformative educational experience. Whether these experiences take place in the classroom, within the surrounding community, or on a global scale, our students graduate with the skills, knowledge, and motivation to become leaders in their respective fields and lead impactful lives around the world. Each year, our nine undergraduate colleges welcome more than 32,000 undergraduate students, offering nearly 5,000 courses across more than 150 fields of study and conferring approximately 7,000 new degrees each spring.
PE Daily (ID: pedaily2012) reported on October 20 that startup Helixon has announced the completion of an angel financing round worth tens of millions of US dollars. Incubated by the Institute for AI Industry Research at Tsinghua University, the company was founded by Jian Peng, a world-renowned computational biology expert and tenured professor in the Department of Computer Science and the School of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This financing round attracted multiple investment institutions, including Xianghe Capital, GL Ventures, and Qingzhi Capital.
Helixon is dedicated to developing a next-generation AI-powered scientific computing platform. By integrating its proprietary high-throughput biological experimental technologies, it provides R&D professionals with an intelligent system for molecular computation, simulation, and design at the microscopic scale. In the field of new drug development, particularly for macromolecular drugs, Helixon will innovatively leverage AI to reengineer the drug development pipeline, thereby significantly accelerating the pace and enhancing the efficiency of novel drug R&D.
Dr. Peng Jian, Founder of Helixon
Founded in June 2021, Helixon is a novel drug discovery company leveraging advanced artificial intelligence technologies. Currently, Helixon features revolutionary algorithms for the design of diverse small and large molecule drugs. Notably, its proprietary protein structure prediction algorithm, built on geometric deep learning, has achieved world-class accuracy in 3D protein structure prediction tasks and significantly outperforms models such as AlphaFold2 and RoseTTAFold in the modeling of critical antibody regions. Helixon is currently developing two core platforms: an AI-driven drug discovery platform and a high-throughput antibody engineering experimental platform:
The AI-driven drug discovery platform is a next-generation computational platform for macromolecular structure modeling, powered by large-scale geometric deep learning algorithms and built upon extensive public and proprietary structural data of proteins and protein complexes. The platform encompasses a comprehensive suite of algorithms and application scenarios, including advanced protein structure prediction, protein and antibody function prediction, key region modeling for macromolecular drugs, and protein sequence design. The company has established partnerships with multiple biotechnology firms and leading academic institutions, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, and has initiated collaborative R&D projects focused on structural modeling and sequence design.
The high-throughput antibody engineering experimental platform is responsible for tasks including flow cytometry analysis and cell sorting, antibody library construction and screening, and the evaluation of antibody binding and neutralizing activities. Furthermore, Helixon will further develop a unified high-throughput computational and experimental platform for the synthesis, screening, and functional validation of AI-designed macromolecules. Equipped with capabilities such as high-throughput B cell analysis and sorting, protein purification, high-throughput antibody synthesis, and activity evaluation, this platform will be deeply integrated with artificial intelligence computing platforms to advance pipeline development in the fields of viral infections and oncology.
Helixon's technical team comprises members from top domestic and international universities and research institutes, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Team members have repeatedly won gold medals in the International Olympiads in Informatics, Chemistry, and Biology.
Dr. Jian Peng, the Founder, is a world-renowned expert in computational biology. He currently serves as a Senior Visiting Professor at the Institute for Artificial Industry Research (AIR), Tsinghua University, and as a Tenured Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Peng leads a research team deeply engaged in artificial intelligence and life sciences. His group has developed algorithms for drug-target matching, protein structure prediction and functional design, disease genetics research, single-cell data analysis, and cancer genomics analysis, and has published over 100 academic papers. These algorithms are widely applied in both basic and translational research, supported by extensive experimental data, with the resulting biological discoveries frequently published in high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, and their affiliated journals. Additionally, his research group has published dozens of papers in machine learning, including deep learning and reinforcement learning, at top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR. During his faculty tenure at UIUC, Dr. Peng has been honored with multiple academic awards, including the Sloan Research Fellowship (Computational and Evolutionary Biology), the NSF CAREER Award, and the 2020 ISCB Overton Prize—the highest honor in the field of computational biology. He remains the only Chinese recipient of this prestigious award.
Institute for AI Industry Research, Tsinghua UniversityZhang YaqinThe Dean stated: "The life sciences and biopharmaceutical sectors are entering the Digital 3.0 era, with AI steadily accelerating the advancement of life health and biopharmaceuticals toward faster, more precise, safer, more cost-effective, and more accessible development. Professor Peng Jian is a world-renowned scientist in computational biology. We are delighted that he founded Helixon, and look forward to close collaboration between AIR and Helixon to forge a dual innovation engine driven by both industry and academia."
The lead investor in this round, Xianghe Capital, foundingPartnerTang Hesongsaid: “Artificial intelligence holds immense potential in complex application scenarios such as new drug development, which are highly capital-intensive and characterized by long R&D cycles. Professor Peng Jian is a world-renowned expert in computational biology, and with the backing of Tsinghua University’s Institute for AI Industry Research (AIR), we are confident that such an outstanding entrepreneurial team will undoubtedly make exceptional contributions to human health research and advancement in the AI-driven drug discovery sector.”