Galixir Completes Tens of Millions in USD Funding to Advance AI-Driven Drug Discovery

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on December 29, 2020, Galixir (hereinafter referred to as “Galixir”) announced the completion of two recent rounds of financing totaling tens of millions of US dollars. The rounds were led by Redpoint China and Morningside Ventures (formerly MorningSide Capital), with participation from Source Code Capital, BAI Capital, Gaorong Ventures, and DCM. Mingyue Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for the transaction. Galixir stated that the proceeds will be used to expand its R&D team and establish a professional biochemical testing laboratory, thereby creating a closed-loop process for innovative drug generation, screening, evaluation, and testing, which will facilitate the rapid optimization and advancement of its R&D projects.

Within just four months, Galixir successfully completed three rounds of financing. During this period, the company achieved several major technological breakthroughs, further expanding its lead in both domestic and international competition. On one hand, Galixir successfully developed drug generation and screening evaluation models targeting innovative gene targets for complex and refractory diseases. On the other hand, all of its existing drug R&D pipelines have made significant progress, sequentially entering in vivo and in vitro laboratory validation stages. Experimental feedback from authoritative institutions demonstrated that Galixir’s proprietary drug activity assessment module significantly improved screening efficiency, achieving a hit rate more than ten times higher than traditional methods. Furthermore, by leveraging its proprietary molecular design and compound optimization modules, the Galixir team rapidly generated multiple de novo design or optimization proposals for novel molecular structures, all of which have passed wet-lab validation. “The wet-lab results confirm that the Galixir platform can efficiently and accurately identify novel molecules with superior activity compared to benchmark drugs and greater patent potential. This has enabled us to rapidly advance multiple R&D pipelines,” stated Dr. Li Chengtao, Founder and CEO of Galixir.

Galixir, founded in 2019, is dedicated to leveraging cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies with a focus on preclinical drug development. Its independently developed AI-driven drug discovery platform aims to significantly reduce the time and costs associated with drug development for pharmaceutical R&D scientists, while providing comprehensive patent protection coverage for the drugs under development.

Dr. Li Chengtao, Founder and CEO of Galixir, earned his bachelor’s degree from the Yao Class at Tsinghua University and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is one of the leading scholars in the interdisciplinary field of AI and chemistry. The rapidly growing Galixir team comprises professionals with multidisciplinary backgrounds, primarily recruited from renowned internet companies, multinational pharmaceutical corporations, and drug research institutions. Team members have experience leading new drug projects to FDA-approved market launch and have pioneered the development and optimization of multiple artificial intelligence models for drug discovery. Currently, the Galixir research team continues to explore cutting-edge AI technologies in drug R&D. This year, in collaboration with top domestic and international universities and research institutes, the team has published several papers in prestigious conferences and journals.

The “AI drug discovery” sector in which Galixir operates is a niche within the broader “AI+” landscape that has garnered significant industry optimism in recent years. Generally, drug development comprises four main stages: drug discovery, preclinical research, clinical trials, and regulatory approval and commercialization.

The core of competition in the AI drug discovery sector lies in the depth of pipeline R&D; the further a drug pipeline advances, the greater its value. Galixir holds a leading position in this field. Its technological capabilities are built upon sophisticated AI models that fully integrate computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry. By leveraging various tools, Galixir has established a comprehensive automated system capable of covering the entire drug development process from hit identification to preclinical candidate selection.

Galixir has developed a suite of proprietary algorithms and established a series of deep learning models for drug target discovery, candidate compound generation, compound structure optimization, druggability and toxicity prediction, and patent analysis. In just over a year since its inception, Galixir has integrated hundreds of models and developed process optimization solutions for drug discovery in cancer, metabolic diseases, and immune-related disorders, gradually building competitive barriers in the AI-driven new drug R&D sector. Preliminary comparative analyses indicate that Galixir’s self-developed models and algorithms have achieved top-tier performance in multiple areas, significantly reducing R&D time and costs, and directly addressing the prevalent challenges of “high investment and long cycles” faced by pharmaceutical companies both domestically and internationally.

In terms of implementation, Galixir has established multiple high-efficiency collaborative project teams capable of concurrently conducting multiple early-stage drug discovery projects. Currently, Galixir has signed strategic cooperation agreements with numerous renowned universities and pharmaceutical companies both in China and abroad, ensuring the smooth advancement of upstream and downstream innovations in innovative drug discovery and development, as well as downstream testing.

Yuan Wenda, Founding and Managing Partner at Hongdian China, stated, “The high costs, long development cycles, and low success rates associated with new drug development have increasingly highlighted the need for AI-driven enhancements to improve industry efficiency. The market size for AI applications in new drug R&D is projected to reach billions of U.S. dollars by 2024. Led by Dr. Li Chengtao, the Galixir team has achieved technological breakthroughs that increase drug screening accuracy by more than tenfold compared to traditional methods. The company has signed end-to-end preclinical drug R&D projects with multiple benchmark pharmaceutical enterprises, generating actual revenue and demonstrating strong growth momentum. We are delighted to lead the Series A financing round to support the company and hope that Galixir will become one of the most dynamic platforms in the global AI drug discovery field.”

Jing Xutian, Managing Director at Morningside Ventures, stated, “We first discussed AI-driven drug discovery with Dr. Li back in 2018, when both technological validation and market prospects remained highly uncertain. Within just two years, this sector has undergone tremendous changes. Dr. Li has not only assembled a relatively complete team and built Galixir’s first-generation AI platform for new drug discovery, but also validated the technical feasibility through wet-lab experiments. The Chinese pharmaceutical market is undergoing a transition from being dominated by generic drug manufacturers to being led by innovative drug companies. Novel drug assets will become a scarce resource across the industry. We look forward to Galixir continuously delivering high-quality innovative drug assets to the industry with the aid of AI.”

BAI Capital stated, “We firmly believe that artificial intelligence technology can bring about tremendous transformation to the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry by building new AI-enabled digital infrastructure for drug R&D across three dimensions: computing power, algorithms, and data. We are strongly optimistic about Galixir’s ability to rapidly and accurately achieve drug molecule discovery through innovative interdisciplinary approaches, positioning it as an innovative platform company capable of mass-producing a pipeline of new drug candidates.”

Micky Wang Yutong, Founding Partner of Mingyue Capital, stated, “Galixir has assembled top-tier interdisciplinary talent in AI and pharmaceuticals, achieving continuous technological breakthroughs in a short period and significantly enhancing the efficiency of new drug development. Mingyue remains firmly optimistic about Dr. Li and his team, and looks forward to Galixir’s further achievements in exploring the chemical universe.”