Polyncure secures multi-million RMB seed round financing, opening a new track for innovative polymeric drugs in chronic disease treatment

Apr 16, 2026 08:00 CST Updated 14:20

FountainBridge

Venture Capital Institution

Polyncure, China's first biotechnology company focused on the research, development, and translation of innovative polymeric drugs, has completed a multi-million-RMB seed round of financing. This round was led by Fountainbridge, with follow-on investment from the Feibiao Innovation Seed Fund.

The proceeds will primarily be used to advance the preclinical research and IND application of its first polymeric drug pipeline targeting cardiovascular calcification, a chronic disease, and to simultaneously expand multiple chronic disease-related polymeric drug projects into clinical translation.

Notably, Professor Luo Zhi, founder of Polyncure, had just completed a landmark commercial exit at the end of 2025: OBaris AG, a peptide oral delivery company he co-founded in Switzerland, was wholly acquired by multinational pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. Bringing with him a full-chain track record of success from basic research to technology translation, Polyncure represents a deep convergence of Professor Luo's interdisciplinary expertise and experience in pharmaceutical sciences, polymeric drugs, and clinical translation.

National Strategy Driven: Substantial Breakthrough from Basic Research to Clinical Application

The establishment of Polyncure marks a milestone in China's transition from basic research accumulation to clinical application and translation in the field of innovative polymeric drugs.

Originating from the national strategic layout: Polyncure relies on the systematic research achievements in the field of biomedical polymers from the special projects under the National Key R&D Program. As a technical field that deeply integrates materials science and life sciences, this is not only a key focus of long-term national planning but also an important direction for future pharmaceutical innovation.

Unique advantages of polymeric drugs: Compared with traditional small molecules or single biologics, synthetic polymeric drugs feature vast chemical space, highly designable structures, adjustable pharmacokinetics, and relatively low systemic toxicity. In the long-term intervention of chronic diseases, these "customizable" and "high safety" characteristics are unique advantages that other types of drug molecules can hardly match.

Pioneering platform-level polymer Drug R&D technology: Despite significant clinical application potential, the field of polymer drugs has long faced challenges such as "complex mechanisms, long transformation cycles, and high engineering difficulty," with few cases successfully achieving a closed-loop in clinical commercialization. Polyncure, an innovative company born in this context, has constructed a full-chain polymer drug R&D platform covering "design—synthesis—screening—transformation," transforming the original technology system developed under China's major national projects into a sustainable innovative drug R&D platform.

Focusing on unmet global needs: Polyncure's core R&D directions focus on chronic disease areas such as cardiovascular, autoimmune, allergic, and metabolic diseases. Among them, the clinical challenge of pathological calcification, for which there are currently no approved therapeutic drugs worldwide, is the first breakthrough pipeline, striving to address the clinical pain point of "no available treatment."

The team, relying on its self-developed full-chain polymer drug R&D platform, is accelerating the advancement of multiple polymer drug projects related to chronic diseases into clinical translation

High Barrier Technology Path: A Unique Multi-Technology Integration of Polymer Science + Large Scientific Facilities + AI

On its technological path, Polyncure has achieved a highly defensible integration of innovative technologies:

The Only Polymer Drug Library in China

Through a high-throughput automated synthesis platform and AI-driven polymeric structure optimization, Polyncure has established a library of over 2,000 candidate polymeric drugs, which is currently the only "ready-to-use toolbox" in China. Based on its proprietary structure-activity relationship data foundation for polymeric drugs and a unique molecular structure characterization system, Polyncure has developed an interpretable and autonomously iterative AI algorithm to accelerate the hit-to-lead process for polymeric drugs. The core barrier of this continuously expanding polymeric drug library lies in its ready-to-use convenience and extremely high drug screening efficiency, making it one of Polyncure's most core competitive assets.

Mechanism Analysis Driven by Large Scientific Facilities

By exclusively leveraging large-scale scientific facilities such as synchrotron radiation, small-angle X-ray scattering, and neutron scattering as "magnifying glasses" for studying drug mechanisms, Polyncure can continuously characterize the pharmacological mechanisms and efficacy processes of polymeric drugs from the molecular scale to the macroscopic scale, establishing a unique technological barrier in drug screening within the industry. At the same time, by combining these with organ-on-a-chip technology that simulates physiological environments, Polyncure has built an "accelerating engine" that bridges the gap from polymeric mechanism research to clinical validation.

Polyncure relies on AI and large scientific apparatus platform-based innovation capabilities, focusing on the field of chronic diseases with unmet clinical needs and huge demand, to develop First-in-class polymer drugs

Golden Team: Conversion Guarantee at the Intersection of Multi-dimensional Advantages

Polyncure has built a composite team that combines "hardcore scientific research" with "hands-on industry experience."

Professor Luo Zhi, the founder, is not only the first chief scientist of a National Key R&D Program born in the 1990s in China, but also brings hands-on experience from the successful exit of OBaris.

The Polyncure team includes experts from major pharmaceutical companies, major hospitals, national drug regulatory authorities, and strategic management talent from multinational corporations. This deep convergence of "research and development, industry, regulatory, and clinical" provides a high level of assurance for the successful translation of Polyncure's innovative polymeric drugs.

As the chronic disease population in China continues to expand, the clinical need for long-term safe and sustainable treatment options has become increasingly urgent. New technological pathways represented by innovative polymeric drugs offer unique advantages in the treatment of chronic diseases and are expected to provide new support for the independent innovation and high-quality development of China's pharmaceutical industry. From major national scientific research programs to enterprise-based platform development, Polyncure, in the unique arena of polymeric drugs, brings new possibilities for the treatment of complex diseases such as chronic conditions.