Five Leading Chinese AI-Driven Biotechs: Pipeline Progress, Strategic Ambitions, and Recent IPO Filings

Recently, at the 2023 Future Health Forum held in Hangzhou’s Future Sci-Tech City, DeepTech officially released the “Map of China’s Digital Medical Technology Innovation Enterprises.” The map evaluates companies across seven dimensions, including healthcare informatization, internet healthcare, medical big data and AI, pharmaceutical digitalization, AI-based medical imaging, surgical robots, and digital therapeutics, selecting 50 enterprises for inclusion.

In the selection for pharmaceutical digitalization, a total of five AI-driven innovative drug companies were listed, namelyEglin Pharma, XtalPi, Insilico Medicine, Starpharm Technology, Xili Technology, they differ in their competitive advantages, business models, and areas of focus.

So, what have these five leading AI-driven innovative pharmaceutical companies been up to recently? What are their future plans? This article reviews and summarizes the recent progress and future strategies of these five enterprises, with a view to outlining the long-term development of China’s AI drug discovery industry.

(Note: The following is presented in alphabetical order by Pinyin initials and does not reflect corporate rankings.)

Eglin Pharma is an international innovative pharmaceutical company focused on the development and application of AI platforms in the biological and clinical domains. Founded in 2019, the company maintains offices and laboratories in both Shenzhen, China, and Maryland, USA, and boasts a top-tier multidisciplinary team with deep expertise in new drug development, regulatory affairs, and artificial intelligence.As an AI-driven biopharmaceutical company with extensive clinical experience and a strong background in international regulations, Aigelin remains committed to R&D based on its proprietary drug pipeline. It prioritizes the treatment of conditions with urgent unmet clinical needs, eschews homogeneous hotspots, and focuses on the development of Me-Only therapies.

In less than four years since its inception, Egrin Pharma has accumulated more than 90 patent applications. Focusing on the three major therapeutic areas of ophthalmology, immunology, and vascular diseases, the company has developed seven innovative drug pipelines using its independently developed “Miaowu AI” platform. Among these, two pipelines—EG-301 for the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and EG-501 for the treatment of cognitive impairment associated with lupus erythematosus—have received approval from the U.S. FDA to enter Phase II clinical trials. Both pipelines advanced from preclinical stages to Phase II clinical trials in less than 18 months. Currently, through analysis using the Miaowu-Clin module, EG-501 has achieved precise patient enrollment in the United States.

Eglin Pharmaceuticals remains committed to addressing “urgent unmet clinical needs” as the starting point for drug innovation, and has successively developed six Class 1 new drugs by continuously refining its disease knowledge graph. Among them,There are no approved drugs in the fields of dry age-related macular degeneration (EG-301), preeclampsia (EG-101), and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (EG-102)., Eglin Pharma is poised to break the deadlock of “no available treatment.”

AI can significantly enhance the efficiency of drug development; however, leveraging AI platforms to identify a suitable candidate drug that not only meets the stringent regulatory standards of the United States and Europe but also addresses urgent clinical needs is as challenging as finding a large, sweet, low-hanging fruit in an orchard already picked over by hundreds of people.Eglin Pharma’s ability to leverage AI technology to rapidly identify drug candidates with the highest clinical and market value is attributable, on one hand, to its algorithms that deeply integrate the expertise of its FDA review specialists, international new-drug clinical development teams, and interdisciplinary AI teams in regulatory and clinical know-how. On the other hand, it stems from the company’s capacity to precisely screen for the most valuable target indications through its AI-driven clinical decision platform, ultimately utilizing the AI platform to generate optimal candidate drug molecules.

Eglin Pharma’s drug development process differs from that of most companies. In response to the highly regulated nature of the pharmaceutical industry, it adopts an end-to-end approach centered on the goal of regulatory approval for market launch. Starting from the urgency of clinical needs, Eglin leverages its Miaowu platform to precisely select indications, thereby achieving full-chain empowerment through AI technology. Recently, Eglin has made significant breakthroughs in “drug development using CRISPR gene-editing technology” and “tagging digital biomarkers,” which will further enhance the accuracy of predictive outcomes generated by the Miaowu AI platform.

Eglin Pharma currently adopts a “Dual Business Model” similar to that of the U.S.-listed company Exscientia, whereby it develops its “own” product pipeline only in a few specific therapeutic areas while providing AI-enabled clinical trial design services across most other therapeutic areas to accelerate commercialization. To date, Eglin Pharma has signed agreements with multiple domestic and international companies, leveraging its expertise to deeply engage in optimizing clinical trial designs and accelerating regulatory acceptance of its pipeline by agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Next,Eglin Pharma will establish a 2,000-square-meter integrated wet and dry laboratory service platform, and continue to advance a dual-business model featuring “parallel development” of proprietary pipelines and AI-centric new drug development services, further enhancing the R&D efficiency and iteration speed of the “Miaowu AI” platform, thereby accelerating clinical development and regulatory approval for pipelines across various therapeutic areas for both itself and its clients.

XtalPi is a drug R&D technology company driven by intelligence and automation. As one of the earliest AI-driven drug discovery enterprises in China, it has pioneered a tripartite drug R&D model integrating “intelligent algorithms + automated experiments + expert expertise.” The company has established a comprehensive R&D iteration process that tightly couples dry labs based on quantum physics and artificial intelligence with advanced wet labs. XtalPi provides pharmaceutical companies with AI-enabled, one-stop services for small-molecule and biologic drug discovery, solid-state drug research, and automated chemistry solutions, challenging the efficiency bottlenecks of traditional R&D and empowering breakthroughs in the speed and scale of new drug development.XtalPi’s AI drug R&D platform leverages cloud-based supercomputing across multiple cloud providers, reducing experimental requirements by up to 90%. Its laboratory facilities span tens of thousands of square meters and house hundreds of automated experimental workstations, which multiply experimental efficiency and generate high-precision data. This creates a complete closed-loop system where high-accuracy predictions and targeted experiments mutually validate and guide each other. Through continuous algorithm optimization, XtalPi achieves scalable benefits in drug R&D, providing robust technical support for innovative breakthroughs and the delivery of Preclinical Candidate Compounds (PCCs), thereby assisting pharmaceutical companies in achieving source innovation, cost reduction, and efficiency enhancement.

Over the past year, XtalPi has collaborated with more than 200 clients, including 16 of the top 20 global innovative pharmaceutical companies; these partners include Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Singapore’s Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), Daewoong Pharmaceutical of South Korea, and Hong Kong(China)Collaborations have been established with major pharmaceutical companies such as Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group, Chia Tai Tianqing, Qilu Pharmaceutical, and The United Laboratories. The total contract value increased by 90% year-on-year. Notably, the delivery time for a high-difficulty new anti-tumor drug R&D project in collaboration with Chia Tai Tianqing was only 50% of the estimated duration. Additionally, the company participated in the development of Pfizer’s oral anti-COVID-19 drug, Paxlovid, accelerating its market launch and securing both the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization and the conditional emergency approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration.

In terms of technological advancements, XtalPi has recently launched a suite of computational platforms and tools integrated into its intelligent drug R&D platform. These offerings are tailored to the specific needs of small-molecule and large-molecule drugs, providing services for various R&D objectives and scenarios, including First-in-Class, Best-in-Class, and Fast Follow-on strategies. Notably, the Intelligent Automated Drug Discovery Platform, ID4Inno™, deploys two major computational systems: the high-precision computational chemistry platform, ID4Gibbs™, which enables rapid evaluation and screening of small-molecule target affinity and selectivity. Furthermore, through a closed-loop iterative process combining “design-computation-experiment” (dry and wet lab integration), it systematically explores the complex structure-activity relationships between multi-scaffold series and targets. The AI-driven drug discovery platform, ID4Idea™, integrates XtalPi’s proprietary large-scale AI model system, establishing digital workflows and intelligent algorithms for diverse drug discovery scenarios. It inspires experts to generate novel ideas and facilitates targeted molecular design, high-throughput evaluation, as well as assisted synthesis and testing. Additionally, by introducing multi-objective optimization during the molecular design phase and simultaneously assessing activity, synthesizability, and druggability during the screening phase, the platform helps reduce sunk costs. Meanwhile, XtalPi is actively advancing its biologics discovery business by launching a highly integrated, dry-wet combined AI antibody development platform, and continues to organically integrate AI algorithms with advanced technologies such as DNA-encoded libraries (DEL), PROTACs, and cryo-electron microscopy. While supporting both small- and large-molecule drug discovery, XtalPi is also continuously expanding its R&D and collaborations in industrial sectors such as agrochemicals, bio-based materials, and new materials.

In terms of enterprise development,XtalPi has a global workforce of over 1,000 employees and is striving to build the world’s largest AI-driven automated experimental cluster for drug discovery. The company has made new progress and announced plans in Shanghai, Boston, and Hong Kong (China), while continuously investing in incubation across its upstream and downstream ecosystems. XtalPi participated in early-stage investments and pipeline development for three biopharmaceutical companies: Liming Biology, Moda Biology, and Saidkang. XtalPi has established R&D spaces totaling tens of thousands of square meters in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing. In 2022, it signed an agreement with the Shanghai Zhangjiang New Area to construct a new laboratory facility spanning tens of thousands of square meters, thereby expanding its robotic arm workstation capacity. The company officially announced the initiation of planning efforts in Hong Kong.(China)AI R&D laboratories and automated laboratories, in synergy with the Shenzhen R&D headquarters, to establish dual Asia-Pacific R&D centers in the Greater Bay Area; XtalPi also announced that it is building its next-generation proprietary automated drug discovery laboratory in Boston to support its business expansion in Europe and the United States.

Galixir is a biotechnology company that initiates drug R&D from clinical needs and is driven by AI as its core technology. The company is committed to building a differentiated pipeline that brings greater value to the pharmaceutical industry, particularly focusing on drug candidates targeting undruggable or difficult-to-drug targets. Its AI-powered drug discovery platform, Pyxir^®Leveraging cutting-edge AI algorithms, combined with tools and expertise in computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and biology, to comprehensively address challenges in the early-stage development of small-molecule drugs, enabling the rapid discovery of novel candidate molecules with high potency and favorable drug-like properties.

StarryPharm Technologies has recently achieved significant breakthroughs in three key areas: “breaking through ‘EDA’ technology in the pharmaceutical field,” “achieving AI-driven big data high-throughput closed-loop production,” and “realizing a closed-loop system for AI-enabled drug R&D technology.”

Dr. Li Chengtao established a multidisciplinary team integrating AI, medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry, and biology, and led the development of M1, an intelligent computing platform for pharmaceutical R&D with independent intellectual property rights—often referred to as the “EDA” of drug discovery. The platform comprises three modules: AI-driven molecular docking, general force fields, and free energy perturbation calculations.In just over a year, the M1 platform has reached world-leading levels across all key metrics, achieving genuine “overtaking on a bend” and domestic substitution.

It is understood that,The fully automated robotic arm experimental system built by Xingyao Technology is currently capable of generating tens of thousands of data points on a weekly basis. Combined with Xingyao’s self-developed AI algorithms, this infrastructure is gradually evolving into an intelligent drug R&D system with data and models as its core competitive advantages.

Moreover, the company’s maturity in AI, computing, and high-throughput biological experimental platforms has led to validation at the level of its drug development pipeline. By identifying unmet clinical needs, Xingyao Technology selected a target for autoimmune disease to guide small-molecule drug development. With artificial intelligence deeply integrated into the entire process of molecular design, screening, and iterative optimization, the company successfully identified a preclinical candidate (PCC) after synthesizing only 80 molecules in just over a year. Compared with the best currently available therapies, the newly nominated PCC offers advantages such as lower toxicity and improved pharmacokinetic properties, addressing key clinical pain points associated with existing marketed drugs. This further demonstrates the transformative impact that artificial intelligence can bring to the industry.

Looking ahead, Xingyao Technology will continue to leverage the dual-cycle strategy of its “AI-driven R&D pipeline” and “AI-enabled computational platform” to empower the drug discovery industry, enabling multiple drug development programs advanced through collaborations between domestic and international pharmaceutical companies and research institutions to advance into clinical trials.

ReviR Therapeutics, founded in 2021, is aAn Emerging Biotechnology Company Dedicated to AI-Driven R&D of Targeted RNA Small-Molecule Drugs for Oncology and Genetic DiseasesHeadquartered in California, USA, and Shenzhen, China, the company’s core team members have deep expertise in computational biology, AI, RNA biology, and drug development.

Xili Technology is currently further optimizing the database of its AI-driven drug discovery platform, VoyageR™, and deepening the platform’s AI learning capabilities, and willThe platform is divided into two major functional modules: “Structure- and Function-Based RNA Target Discovery” and “Design and Optimization of RNA-Targeting Small Molecules.”, deeply integrating computational models with high-throughput experimental data to establish a closed-loop synergy between in silico and wet-lab experiments, and employing reinforcement learning strategies to provide efficient and precise assistance in the discovery of innovative small-molecule drugs targeting RNA, thereby accelerating the drug development process.

The target discovery module currently employs three major mechanisms—BindeR, SpliceR, and DegradeR—to assess target reliability. By leveraging proprietary algorithms and various computational approaches such as simulated mutagenesis, it performs analyses of target RNA structure and function, screens for specific activity “pockets” for small-molecule binding, and predicts small-molecule–target interactions. This approach deeply integrates AI-driven proprietary algorithms, computational biology, and wet-lab experimental data to ensure target reliability at the source. The small-molecule design and optimization module primarily focuses on hit compound prediction and lead compound optimization. Through continuous iteration of experimentation, prediction, and validation, it employs reinforcement learning strategies to steadily improve the accuracy of molecular predictions.

In advancing its pipeline R&D, Xili Technology leverages experimental data and feedback from its development programs to conduct rapid and effective validation of its AI platform, thereby further optimizing the system. Meanwhile, by pursuing both in-house and collaborative pipelines, the company is building its own R&D “moat,” continuously accumulating relevant expertise, and steadily enhancing its team’s R&D capabilities.Currently, the company is advancing its first pipeline candidate for Huntington’s disease, with an IND filing expected in 2024 and the potential to enter the clinical stage as early as the end of that year.Data shows that,Currently, no drugs are available to alter the natural course of Huntington’s disease; interventions are limited to alleviating clinical symptoms and reducing choreiform movements. Xili Technology’s pipeline candidate has the potential to become a first-in-class therapy.In addition, the company has entered into a collaboration with Yuhong Pharmaceutical to jointly develop innovative drugs targeting two genitourinary tumor targets, leveraging its independently developed AI drug discovery platform, VoyageR, and targeted RNA technology.

It is reported that Xili Technology will continue to deepen the two major functional modules of VoyageR, optimize machine learning methods, and conduct continuous in-depth analysis of RNA structures, aiming to train the platform into an internationally leading AI+RNA small-molecule drug discovery platform with higher levels of automation and accuracy.In terms of its pipeline, the focus will be on oncology and rare diseases. Leveraging AI to drive breakthroughs at the RNA level for multiple currently untreatable conditions, the company aims to develop first-in-class (FIC) and best-in-class (BIC) innovative therapies., explore the blue ocean of drug R&D, advance pipeline commercialization, and tackle the challenge of cracking "undruggable" targets.

Insilico Medicine is an “end-to-end” AI-driven clinical-stage drug discovery company. By integrating biology, chemistry, and clinical trial analytics through generative artificial intelligence, it leverages modern machine learning techniques—including deep generative models, reinforcement learning, Transformers, and pre-trained models—to build a powerful and efficient AI-powered drug discovery platform. This platform identifies novel targets from vast datasets and generates new molecules de novo against these targets.

Insilico Medicine focuses on areas of unmet medical needs, including cancer, fibrosis, immunology, central nervous system disorders, and aging-related diseases, to advance and accelerate the development of innovative drugs.Insilico Medicine currently has nearly 30 internal R&D pipelines, including eight preclinical candidate compounds and two clinical-stage drug candidates. The most advanced program, INS018-055, is a first-in-class small-molecule inhibitor for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). It has completed Phase I clinical trials in New Zealand and China, received orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is poised to initiate a global, multicenter Phase II clinical trial. Additionally, ISM3312, Insilico Medicine’s innovative oral antiviral drug for COVID-19, obtained clinical trial approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) in February 2023 and is about to enter the clinical trial phase.

Meanwhile, Insilico Medicine actively maintains close exchanges with the global industrial and academic communities. Since 2022, the company has established academic or commercial collaborations with partners including Fosun Pharma, Centogene, the University of Zurich, EQRx, Sanofi, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Saudi Aramco. Notably, the collaborations with Fosun Pharma, featuring a $13 million upfront payment, and with Sanofi, featuring a $21.5 million upfront payment, have set records for AI-driven drug discovery partnerships in China. The partnership with Saudi Aramco represents a pioneering exploration by Insilico Medicine’s Middle East team to extend its artificial intelligence capabilities from drug discovery to broader fields, including sustainable chemistry, green energy, and agriculture.

In terms of technological platforms, Insilico Medicine has completed a comprehensive upgrade of its Pharma.AI artificial intelligence drug discovery platform. The target discovery platform, PandaOmics, has been updated to version 3.0, featuring newly added transformer-driven knowledge graph capabilities and the recent integration of an advanced AI question-answering function, “ChatPandaGPT.” This feature enables researchers to efficiently conduct natural language-based queries while browsing and analyzing large datasets, thereby facilitating more convenient identification of potential targets and biomarkers. Additionally, Chemistry42, the generative AI-driven compound generation and design platform, has been upgraded to version 2.0, and the company has globally launched the first version of inClinico 1.0, a platform for predicting and optimizing clinical trial outcomes.

Insilico Medicine’s other technology platform initiative focuses on intelligent robotic laboratories. In December 2022, the company unveiled the world’s first fully automated robotic laboratory driven by AI-assisted decision-making. This lab deeply integrates artificial intelligence with automation, robotics, and biological capabilities, focusing on areas such as target discovery, compound screening, personalized drug development, and translational medicine research. It aims to efficiently transform the drug discovery process, comprehensively improve the success rate of drug R&D, and accelerate the fulfillment of unmet clinical needs.

To date, Insilico Medicine has established offices or research teams in eight countries and regions worldwide, including the Generative AI and Quantum Computing R&D Regional Science Center unveiled in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in early February.Moving forward, Insilico Medicine will continue to optimize its global layout, leveraging its Pharma.AI platform for AI-driven drug discovery and its AI-powered robotic laboratory to efficiently advance collaborative projects and internal pipelines toward clinical development.

It can be seen that,The aforementioned five AI-driven pharmaceutical companies have continuously achieved breakthroughs in upgrading their AI technology platforms, discovering preclinical candidates (PCCs), conducting clinical trials, forging domestic and international business collaborations, and establishing integrated dry and wet laboratories. Driven by technological advancements, competitive dynamics among peers, and capital investment, China’s AI pharmaceutical sector has exhibited a vibrant landscape of “a hundred schools of thought contending” in recent years.。

Across the AI-driven drug discovery industry, technology platforms are iterating toward greater precision, specialization, and efficiency, while the integration of AI with biologics is steadily strengthening.“Accelerating the advancement of drug pipelines into preclinical and clinical research stages” has also become the current development plan for various business models, including SaaS, CRO, Biotech, and Biopharma.。

The ability of AI technology to “reduce costs and increase efficiency” in new drug development is already evident; the field is now entering an era of feasibility validation for AI-enabled innovative drug R&D.

On March 2, 2023, the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) released《Artificial Intelligence in Drug Manufacturing》Discussion Paper. This document addresses New Drug Applications (NDAs), Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs), and Biologics License Applications (BLAs). It outlines the regulatory scope and key emphases for AI-enabled drug development, focusing on cloud-based data quality, data management, AI applications, and model standards.

The FDA has fired the “first shot” in regulating AI-driven drug development, and targeted regulations are inevitably forthcoming as the industry enters the imminent “era of clinical research.” Therefore,Only AI-driven pharmaceutical companies that deeply understand the philosophy of drug regulation can move faster and go further.。

According to statistics from VCBeat, the number of AI-driven pharmaceutical companies in China currently in the clinical research stage accounts for less than 20% of the industry’s total scale; however, based on the current pace of development of these enterprises,The industry as a whole will usher in an explosive period for “clinical research” from 2024 to 2026.. Therefore,In China, the competitive focus of the AI drug discovery industry is expected to expand over the next two years from AI algorithm technology platforms to encompass wet and dry laboratories required for preclinical research, as well as regulatory expertise and clinical trial design talent needed for clinical development.。

As pioneers in the clinical application of AI-driven new drugs, companies such as Egrin Pharma and Insilico Medicine are poised to accelerate the development of China’s AI-innovated pharmaceuticals and offer constructive insights for industry advancement.