AIxplorerBio Secures RMB 50 Million in Angel Funding to Advance AI-Driven Autoimmune Drug Discovery with BioMap and Viva Biotech

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on April 26, 2021, AIxplorerBio, an AI-driven innovative biopharmaceutical company, announced the completion of its RMB 50 million angel financing round. AIxplorerBio was jointly established by Dr. Xu Daqiang’s team, BioMap, and Viva Biotech. The company focuses on novel drug development in the fields of autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders, and is committed to creating a new AI-based paradigm for drug discovery. The angel round was led by BioMap, with participation from Viva Biotech. As strategic investors, BioMap and Viva Biotech will provide comprehensive support to AIxplorerBio in areas including AI technology, computing power, foundational multi-dimensional data, protein structure analysis, and new drug development.

Regarding this strategic investment and collaboration, Dr. Daqiang Xu, Founder and CEO of AIxplorerBio, stated, “Artificial intelligence has already demonstrated its immense potential in the discovery and development of new drugs. With the continuous improvement of underlying biochemical data and the ongoing iteration of AI technologies, artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt the existing paradigm of new drug R&D. To achieve this goal, it is essential to fully and organically integrate the ‘know-how’ from both the AI technology and new drug R&D sectors. We are deeply grateful to BioMap and Viva Biotech for providing AIxplorerBio with the opportunity to combine two of the industry’s leading platforms, thereby establishing an efficient, high-quality new drug R&D model that can deliver more effective therapies to patients at a faster pace. AIxplorerBio is strategically focused on new drug development in the autoimmune disease field. Furthermore, through deep collaboration with BioMap and Viva Biotech, we aim to maximize the advantages of artificial intelligence in addressing practical challenges in new drug R&D, thereby shortening development cycles and improving success rates.”

Dr. Daqiang Xu and Dr. Xuliang Jiang, co-founders of AIxplorerBio, along with the executive team, form a multidisciplinary group with extensive experience in overseas new drug development and commercial operations. Dr. Xu has many years of experience in R&D, marketing and sales, new product initiation, development, and commercialization at multinational pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis. Additionally, he possesses diverse expertise, including investment in global innovative biotech startups. Dr. Jiang brings over twenty years of experience in computational chemistry and has participated in multiple drug development programs, one of which has received FDA approval, while seven others have advanced to clinical stages.

AIxplorerBio and BioMap will engage in deep collaboration centered on the co-development of an AI-driven drug discovery platform and the advancement of drug pipelines. BioMap will provide technical support for its biological computing engine, computational power, and high-throughput data acquisition and analysis capabilities. Leveraging its expertise in drug development and unique accumulated experience in validation technologies, AIxplorerBio will join forces with BioMap through joint investment to develop high-risk, high-value pipelines targeting autoimmune diseases. The partnership will focus on therapeutic areas lacking effective treatment targets, utilize BioMap’s immune atlas for novel target discovery, and accelerate drug development using the new platform.

Liu Wei, Co-founder and CEO of BioMap, stated, “This collaboration with AIxplorerBio marks BioMap’s first deep partnership in co-developing a drug R&D platform and advancing drug pipeline development. BioMap will provide comprehensive support for the new platform’s development, including biological computing, computational power, and high-throughput data acquisition and analysis. AIxplorerBio is driven by an ambitious vision to develop innovative drugs. Dr. Xu Daqiang and Dr. Jiang Xuliang each bring over 20 years of management and R&D experience from multinational pharmaceutical companies, earning widespread acclaim for their technical expertise and industry insight. We believe that collaborating with AIxplorerBio will provide closed-loop validation and iterative scenarios for BioMap’s biological computing engine, enabling us to jointly achieve breakthroughs in pipeline development.”

AIxplorerBio will also fully leverage Viva Biotech’s efficient new drug R&D platform, including technologies such as chemical and biological synthesis and biological validation, to achieve rapid early-stage new drug discovery and optimization. As a global leader in structure-based drug discovery, Viva Biotech possesses extensive experience and technical expertise in target protein expression and structural studies, drug screening, and lead compound optimization, providing AIxplorerBio with a robust and efficient foundation for data analysis.

Dr. Mao Chen, Chairman and CEO of Viva Biotech, stated, “There is a significant unmet clinical need globally for autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders, with many R&D pain points remaining effectively unresolved. Artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies will bring new opportunities to the development of innovative drugs in this field. Through this in-depth collaboration with AIxplorerBio, we will leverage Viva Biotech’s extensive expertise in structure-based drug design (SBDD), focusing on target identification, protein structure elucidation, and medicinal chemistry trials, to jointly develop innovative therapeutic solutions powered by artificial intelligence.”

Jiaxing AIxplorerBio Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (AIxplorerBio) is an AI-driven innovative pharmaceutical company co-founded by an experienced team of overseas-returning professionals and jointly backed by BioMap and Viva Biotech. AIxplorerBio focuses on the research and development of novel therapeutics for autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases, striving to establish a new AI-based paradigm in drug discovery and development.

AIxplorerBio is a novel drug discovery company primarily driven by AI technology. Throughout the drug development process, AIxplorerBio remains committed to establishing, refining, and promptly applying relevant AI technologies across all stages of R&D. In addition to its comprehensive strategic partnerships with BioMap and Viva Biotech, AIxplorerBio will actively expand external collaborations with innovative technology companies within BioMap’s AI ecosystem and with innovative pharmaceutical companies incubated and invested in by Viva Biotech’s ecosystem.

BioMap is China’s first biocomputing-driven life sciences company, founded by Robin Li, the founder of Baidu. Committed to long-term, large-scale investments, BioMap leverages the integrated innovation of advanced AI technologies and cutting-edge biotechnology to build novel multi-omics detection and analysis platforms, high-throughput experimental simulation systems, and intelligent molecular discovery engines. These efforts aim to accelerate the development of new drugs and diagnostic products, ultimately benefiting human health.

BioMap is committed to building an internationally leading intelligent multi-omics ecosystem. By combining independent R&D with global investments, and partnering with diverse cutting-edge technologies and professional teams both in China and abroad, BioMap jointly promotes multi-level, multi-dimensional, and longitudinal analysis of large clinical cohorts. This effort aims to uncover immune principles underlying cancer, autoimmune diseases, and aging-related conditions, thereby accelerating the development of more innovative drugs and diagnostic products. To date, BioMap has invested in or collaborated with over 50 early-stage technology companies and research teams worldwide. It has also launched the “BioMap Immune Atlas Excellence Program,” with a fund size of RMB 1 billion. This program provides technical and financial support for frontier exploration and pipeline translation projects that are clinically based, focused on the regulation of complex immune mechanisms, leverage multi-omics technologies and atlas engines, and can be accelerated by AI, thus expediting the translation of scientific achievements into practical applications.

WuXi Biologics’ mission is to become the cradle of global innovative biotechnology companies. We have developed a highly scalable business model that combines the traditional Cash-for-Service (CFS) model with our proprietary Equity-for-Service (EFS) model. The CFS business is dedicated to providing integrated R&D and manufacturing services to global innovative drug clients, while the EFS business focuses on identifying and investing in high-potential biopharmaceutical startups to address unmet clinical medical needs.

As of December 31, 2020, Viva Biotech had cumulatively provided drug research and development and manufacturing services to 1,252 biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients worldwide, studied over 1,500 independent drug targets, delivered more than 21,000 protein complex structures to clients, and invested in and incubated a total of 67 biopharmaceutical start-ups.