Yinjia Bio Secures Pre-A Financing to Accelerate Its Protein Optimization Platform

VCBeat learned that on July 20, 2021, YINJIA (Shanghai) Biomedicine Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "YINJIA BIOSCIENCES") announced the swift completion of a Pre-A financing round amounting to tens of millions of RMB. The round was led by Gaorong Capital, with CDH VGC and Furong Investment participating as co-investors. The Pre-A financing will primarily be used to accelerate the development of YINJIA BIOSCIENCES' proprietary protein optimization platform, recruit core technical personnel, expand the capacity of its GMP manufacturing platform, and establish capabilities for a single-cell multifunctional protein analysis platform.

YINJIA BIOSCIENCES was founded in November 2020 and completed an angel round financing of tens of millions of RMB in January 2021, led by CDH Investments with Furong Investment as a co-investor. The company has established facilities in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing, including a protein technology platform laboratory, a diagnostic reagent R&D center, and a GMP pilot-scale production platform, rapidly advancing technological R&D and the formation of its production and operational management teams. Within just a few months, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES has preliminarily established a Shanghai-based protein development platform and successfully developed several unique core raw materials, including a highly active and highly stable recombinant trypsin (r-Trypsin) comparable to Roche’s products, and calcineurin (PP2B), a protein notoriously difficult to express. It is reported that YINJIA BIOSCIENCES is also developing a pipeline of multiple core raw material products characterized by high market demand and high technical barriers, which are scheduled for commercial launch upon completion of development in the near future.

YINJIA BIOSCIENCES was founded by Dr. Yifei Wu, a veteran in the biopharmaceutical industry. He previously served as Vice President of WuXi AppTec and General Manager of the Clinical Diagnostics and Reagents Division. During his studies abroad, he received comprehensive, multi-year training in product design and process development at Roche Diagnostics and Cook Pharmica in the United States. Over the past decade, Dr. Wu has spearheaded CRO collaborative services with more than 80 leading domestic and international pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, and hospitals, accumulating extensive hands-on frontline, operational management, and regulatory affairs experience across both the pharmaceutical and diagnostics sectors.

Regarding this financing round, Dr. Wu Yifei, Founder of YINJIA BIOSCIENCES, expressed his sincere gratitude to Gaorong Capital, CDH VGC, and Furong Investment—three leading investment institutions in China—for their support and recognition of the company. YINJIA BIOSCIENCES will continue to steadfastly consolidate and innovate its foundational technologies centered on the protein platform, integrate cutting-edge interdisciplinary science and technology into the company’s platform, and build a leading "Protein Craftsman" platform in China. The company aims to accelerate the implementation and translation of frontier biomedical technologies and processes into applications for core ingredients and innovative products, delivering high-quality ingredients and products that meet market demand more rapidly and extensively.

Dr. Wu Yifei pointed out that the new round of funding recently secured by the company will also play a vital role in advancing its new strategic initiatives. Recently, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES entered into a strategic cooperation framework agreement with U.S. biotech company IsoPlexis. The two parties will collaborate to advance the application of the IsoPlexis single-cell multi-functional proteomics analysis platform for real-time dynamic monitoring and predictive analysis of therapeutic efficacy and toxicity in patients undergoing tumor immunotherapy and cellular immunotherapy. IsoPlexis’s proprietary IsoCode chip detection technology (SCBC)—the Isolight fully automated single-cell multi-functional protein analyzer—was honored with "The Top Innovation of 2017" by *The Scientist*.

Dr. Le Beilin, Project Lead at Gaorong Capital, stated: “Over the past decade or so, biomolecular research has advanced along the trajectory from ‘small’ to ‘large’ and from ‘genetics’ to ‘function’, following the framework of the central dogma. As downstream fields such as academic research, clinical IVD, and drug R&D have gradually entered the deep waters of frontier exploration in recent years, they have generated complex and novel demands for upstream protein raw materials. Within the team at YINJIA BIOSCIENCES and its founder, Dr. Wu Yifei, one can truly sense a ‘craftsmanship spirit’ dedicated to protein technology and quality. We are fortunate to have crossed paths, and we look forward to continuing to support the company’s journey ahead.”

Dr. Liu Dan, Partner at CDH VGC, stated: "Dr. Wu Yifei is an outstanding scientist and manager in the field of protein development. Within just a few short months, he has demonstrated highly efficient team execution and an unwavering entrepreneurial spirit. We are delighted to make a follow-on investment in YINJIA BIOSCIENCES and will provide long-term support to help it become a leading domestic enterprise that breaks the foreign monopoly on high-end protein raw materials."

Dr. Sun Pengjun, Chairman of Furong Investment, stated: “I am deeply impressed that, under the leadership of Dr. Wu Yifei, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES has efficiently established a protein technology platform laboratory, diagnostic reagent R&D facilities, and a GMP pilot production platform across Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing within a limited timeframe. Concurrently, the company has successfully completed the development of several unique raw materials and forged a partnership with IsoPlexis, a leading single-cell functional proteomics company. Furong Investment will firmly remain a value investor in YINJIA, accompanying it through its rapid growth and advancement.”

Upon returning to China in 2008, Dr. Wu Yifei successively assisted Crown Bioscience, WuXi AppTec, and Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group in establishing their protein science and macromolecular protein businesses from the ground up, before venturing into independent entrepreneurship. With a keen eye on market trends, he possesses profound and unique insights, along with a clear strategy, regarding the development of the biopharmaceutical industry and the selective introduction and domestic deployment of the latest cutting-edge international technologies.

Prior to founding YINJIA BIOSCIENCES, he spent considerable time contemplating the strategic positioning and direction of the company, ultimately deciding that the new venture would adopt an external expansion development model centered on a protein platform. In Wu Yifei’s view, after nearly a decade of development, China’s biopharmaceutical industry has preliminarily established a comprehensive ecosystem. However, to achieve genuine original innovation capabilities, it still requires continuous capability iteration and process optimization across every segment of the value chain.

For him and YINJIA BIOSCIENCES, the strategy is to continuously expand service capabilities into diverse downstream application scenarios while consolidating the high-end protein platform. Starting from the construction of a comprehensive protein platform, the company will initiate a phased outward expansion centered on this core technology. In its early development stage, it will extend its services and product portfolio to areas including core key protein raw materials for diagnostic reagents, novel drug targets, early cancer diagnosis reagents, and companion diagnostics for emerging therapies. This approach will gradually form a closed-loop business development model that spans from underlying technological innovation to the R&D of innovative products. Wu Yifei told VCBeat that despite its short operating history, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES has already secured letters of intent for commercial cooperation with dozens of biopharmaceutical and biotech companies both in China and abroad, which has further strengthened his confidence in the company's future.

Currently, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES focuses on strategically developing upstream bottleneck protein raw materials. Leveraging the core team's years of industry expertise in this vertical sector, the company delivers products with quality and stability that rival overseas benchmark brands. Wu Yifei noted that having served over 80 domestic and international pharmaceutical companies over the years, the team has developed a clear, systematic understanding of quality standards and product requirements, which has, to a certain extent, helped avoid unnecessary detours during the company's early development phase. Taking protein production as an example, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES implements continuous evaluation protocols at every stage of the manufacturing process to ensure the consistent production of high-quality proteins.

Throughout the entire product development lifecycle, continuously balancing the priorities across different technology and process platforms to achieve upstream-downstream integration and synergy represents one of the most challenging aspects of the "0 to 1" phase. Wu Yifei emphasizes that in the process of raw material design, development, and commercial-scale production, R&D must not only pursue continuous refinement but also proactively lay the groundwork for large-scale manufacturing process iterations starting from the small-scale pilot production stage. Accordingly, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES has strategically established operations across Beijing, Shanghai, and Suzhou: IVD R&D is based in Beijing, the protein raw material platform in Shanghai, and GMP manufacturing in Suzhou.

Additionally, over the past few months, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES has preliminarily established a GMP-compliant quality management system, laying a solid foundation for the rapid commercialization and regulatory approval of subsequent innovative diagnostic products. The completion of the Pre-A funding round provides robust support for the rapid supplementation, optimization, and enhancement of hardware and software capabilities essential for the development of core raw materials and downstream diagnostic products.

With the continuous maturation and innovative advancement of YINJIA BIOSCIENCES' protein platform technology, and leveraging the team's professional, highly efficient diagnostic reagent development capabilities alongside a comprehensive quality management system, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES is steadily entering the companion diagnostics market. The company will collaborate with leading domestic and international research institutions, enterprises, and universities, such as Johns Hopkins University. By adopting a dual-drive strategy of technology introduction and independent R&D, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES will rapidly advance the commercialization of diagnostic kits for the early diagnosis of malignant tumors, as well as companion diagnostic products designed to support the development of Class I innovative drugs, thereby fulfilling the company's mission and original aspiration.

“In the future, we aim to provide more in-depth support for the development of innovative therapeutic products addressing urgent clinical needs, including immunotherapy and cell therapy,” Wu Yifei stated. For innovative therapies, the evaluation of efficacy and safety is of paramount importance and often necessitates the application of innovative tools. In this process, YINJIA BIOSCIENCES will collaborate with biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to deliver scientifically validated and highly efficient diagnostic kits, assist in screening for the most appropriate patient populations, and precisely monitor treatment outcomes, thereby enabling patients to derive greater clinical benefit.