Intellective Biologics Secures Over RMB 500 Million in Series C Funding and Files for Hong Kong IPO

VCBeat has learned that Intellective Biologics (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (“Intellective Bio”) has recently completed its Series C financing round, raising over RMB 500 million. The round was co-led by Qingsong Capital and Gaorong Capital, with participation from Fuhui Venture Capital, CITIC Bank Investment Beijing, Founder Securities Investment, and Wenhua Haihui, among others. Sanjiang Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. According to company executives, the proceeds will be primarily used to rapidly expand commercial production capacity, comprehensively upgrade technology platforms, strategically layout international operations, and expand the talent team.

Intellective Bio, established in April 2018, primarily focuses on the CDMO sector for large-molecule biopharmaceutical process development and large-scale commercial manufacturing. With its cutting-edge process development technology platform yielding continuous breakthroughs, it is one of the few CDMO enterprises possessing comprehensive capabilities in core technologies, scaled production, and a closed-loop commercialization model.

Within just four years of its establishment, the company has completed four rounds of financing, with each round exceeding RMB 100 million. During the Series C financing round, existing shareholder Qingsong Capital increased its stake, underscoring the enduring partnership and mutual trust between Intellective Bio and its investors. Meanwhile, the participation of new shareholders such as Gaorong Capital, a professional investment institution specializing in the biomedical sector, reflects strong recognition from the capital market and high confidence in Intellective Bio’s sustained growth.

According to VCBeat’s “2021 Global Healthcare Industry Capital Report,” the global biopharmaceutical sector took a commanding lead over other subsectors in 2021, securing the top spot in financing once again with 1,359 deals and a total funding amount of approximately RMB 369 billion. In China, driven by the combined impact of the pandemic and national policies supporting the biopharmaceutical industry, investment and financing in the biopharmaceutical sector continued to lead the healthcare track in both deal volume and value. In 2021, there were 558 financing deals in China’s biopharmaceutical sector, with total funding reaching RMB 109.083 billion.

 
Source: VCBeat, "2021 Global Healthcare Industry Capital Report"

In fact, over the past decade, investment in the biopharmaceutical sector has consistently ranked among the highest within the healthcare industry.

From a domestic perspective, the biopharmaceutical industry presents extensive opportunities.First, the trend of population aging has further spurred market demand for the biopharmaceutical industry. Second, with socioeconomic development, there is substantial room for growth in per capita health expenditure. As the domestic market environment evolves, favorable policy support is being provided for innovative drugs; a large number of overseas-returning professionals are returning to China to start businesses; and biopharmaceutical investors have access to smoother exit channels. These factors collectively drive the development of China’s biopharmaceutical industry as an essential sector, positioning it as a key growth engine for the next decade and beyond.

Globally, the market size of biologics is also rapidly expanding.Relevant data indicate that the market size for biologics is expected to exceed $500 billion in 2025. Alongside the overall market expansion, investment in drug R&D is also showing a rapid growth trend, with global spending on biologics R&D projected to reach $204 billion in 2024.

In both overseas and domestic markets, the number of new drug applications, new drug acceptances, and biologics Investigational New Drug (IND) filings continues to rise. Currently, biologics have surpassed small-molecule drugs in their share of sales among the global top 100 pharmaceutical products. The pipeline of Phase III clinical projects is poised to bring a new wave of development opportunities to the CDMO industry, with the biopharmaceutical CDMO sector experiencing explosive growth.

Li Zhi, CEO of Intellective Bio, pointed out in his analysis that the biotech sector is currently experiencing intense hyper-competition, with an excessive number of companies targeting the same therapeutic targets. Many firms lack sufficiently deep competitive moats, and the commercialization of innovative drugs faces significant hurdles. As a large number of CRO companies gradually break through technical barriers, biotech firms must focus on fundamental research to establish meaningful patent barriers.In the current landscape, for most innovative pharmaceutical companies, strategic focus—running faster and better than competitors to achieve cost control—is a viable solution. By choosing to collaborate with partners across the pharmaceutical industry chain to advance clinical development, innovative drug companies will undoubtedly propel CDMO firms such as Intellective Bio into the spotlight.

Le Beilin, Executive Director of Gaorong Capital, commented on this investment: “As more biopharmaceuticals worldwide progress vertically from early-stage R&D to commercial manufacturing, and platform technologies expand horizontally from monoclonal antibodies to bispecific/multispecific antibodies, fusion proteins, ADCs, and beyond, these trends present both significant opportunities and new challenges for CDMO companies. As a one-stop CDMO service platform,”Intellective Bio delivers fast and reliable solutions to clients through optimized R&D cycles and a mature supply chain system., as swift as the wind, as orderly as a forest.Backed by Intellective Bio’s experienced team, robust technology platform, and a scalable, systematic supply chain.“We are also optimistic about Intellective Bio’s plans to further expand its production capacity and pursue internationalization, thereby empowering more customers worldwide in their new drug development processes.”

Li Jing, project lead at Qingsong Capital, stated, “With the frequent major breakthroughs in large-molecule drugs in both technology and clinical applications in recent years, the industry has entered a new and critical phase. Professionalized one-stop CDMO platforms will play a pivotal nodal role in this process.”Intellective Bio’s team possesses extensive experience in the process development and industrialization of large-molecule drugs, characterized by long-standing close collaboration and strong execution capabilities.“Qingsong Capital has remained focused on investing across the entire life and health industry chain, while working closely with strategic partners to continuously monitor and support the development and innovation of the supply chain. With the support of this round of financing, we look forward to further enhancing operational efficiency and cost advantages, building an industry-leading technology platform and service quality system, providing customers with higher-quality end-to-end solutions, empowering the R&D and commercialization of new drugs globally, and bringing more efficient and accessible advanced therapies to patients.”

As stated by the investors, Intellective Bio’s ability to attract capital is attributed to “its experienced team, robust technology platform, and a scaled, systematic supply chain as support.”

In terms of the team,Currently, Intellective Bio employs over 1,000 staff members, including a core executive team of more than 20 professionals, all of whom possess extensive experience in drug R&D, manufacturing, and regulatory submissions in China. Team members have participated in over 100 large-molecule biologic drug development projects, with eight products successfully having their Biologics License Applications (BLA) approved in China. These products span various categories, including recombinant proteins, fusion proteins, monoclonal antibody biosimilars, and Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs). Meanwhile, Intellective Bio is actively recruiting executives with a global perspective, including international team members from organizations such as JP Morgan and Samsung, laying the foundation for its upcoming international business expansion.

In terms of technical platformsAs a CDMO focused on biopharmaceutical process development and large-scale manufacturing, Intellective Bio operates seven core technology platforms: GMP manufacturing, ADC, multi-modal cell culture, proprietary cell line development, developability assessment, viral safety testing, and formulation development. Its service portfolio covers monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, multispecific antibodies, fusion proteins, vaccines, and ADCs, making it one of the few companies in China capable of manufacturing ADC drugs.

Based on Intellective Bio’s own capabilities,In the CDMO industry, Intellective Bio is also renowned for its “Intellective Speed.”For example, Intellective Bio adopts a platform-based monoclonal antibody manufacturing process to shorten process development time; for a certain trispecific antibody project, it took only three months from molecule selection to the delivery of 200L samples. By utilizing platform-based production materials, the company reduced material procurement lead times, enabling a bispecific antibody project to move from cell line development to sample delivery in just seven weeks.

According to Li Zhi, CEO of Intellective Bio, the ability to rapidly deliver on customer needs is attributable to the following factors:

First, the core team of Intellective Bio itself has relatively rich experience,"Experienced the entire process from IND to BLA", the team's experience can enable it to provide clients with optimal solutions; second,The company's flat organizational structure enables rapid decision-making., and advance project execution; thirdly, Intellective Bio’s core value is to empower clients, which differs from other enterprises that merely serve clients through contractual agreements.Intellective Bio often adopts a customer-centric perspective during project execution., providing customers with optimal solutions to better empower them and achieve mutual success.

Currently, regions across China are actively driving the expansion of CDMO capacity, while some companies are also providing corresponding CDMO services based on their proprietary technology platforms. How to better respond to competition has become a critical challenge for CDMO enterprises.

Li Zhi, CEO of Intellective Bio, mentioned in an interview that to address this situation, it is necessary to choose to focus on a specific niche sector, andIntellective Bio will deepen its focus on the CMO niche sector in the future."On the one hand, there are currently no companies specializing exclusively in CMO services; on the other hand, the market in this sector holds substantial growth potential. Compared with the current capacity demand in the United States, China’s capacity demand in related fields continues to expand."

What Intellective Bio aims to do is help customers bring their products to market, and even sustain their growth throughout the entire product lifecycle. To this end,Intellective Bio allocates resources in varying proportions to support the company’s strategic layout, while placing core emphasis on process assurance (credibility) and cost control (reliability).

First, Intellective Bio provides a reliable manufacturing supply chain.By strengthening the internal quality system and continuously optimizing and upgrading processes, we provide stable assurance for our partner enterprises.

Second, Intellective Bio has achieved control over commercial production costs.It is reported that by strengthening strategic cooperation with local enterprises, a supply chain system combining collaborative development and independent R&D has been established to control commercial production costs.

It is worth noting that production capacity is also a core focus for Intellective Bio in its development. In 2021, Intellective Bio further expanded its production capacity by constructing two new facilities, bringing its total capacity to over 200,000 liters. Looking ahead, Intellective Bio will continue to enhance its production capacity and optimize cost-effectiveness through scaled manufacturing.

As early as the end of 2020, Intellective Bio secured a customer order spanning from Phase III clinical trials to commercialization; by the end of 2021, the company further obtained its first commercialization order for a post-launch product.

While focusing on the large-molecule CMO sector, continuously expanding production capacity, and strengthening cost control, Intellective Bio is also further expanding into international markets.Intellective Bio has helped its clients obtain clinical trial approvals in countries such as Australia, the United States, and New Zealand. In the first half of this year, Intellective Bio onboarded a team with an international perspective, which is currently primarily responsible for global regulatory submissions and international business development (BD).

Li Zhi, CEO of Intellective Bio, added, “We are committed to accelerating the market launch of more new drugs and have accumulated extensive experience in practice, identifying the optimal pathway for end-to-end services from IND to BLA.”Intellective Bio holds a technological lead, has rapidly achieved large-scale production through its comprehensive industry chain layout, and has gained widespread industry recognition, contributing to China’s “intelligent” biomanufacturing.We will also uphold our vision and values for long-term development, assist clients in navigating complex decision-making, prepare for sustained growth, and remain committed to a path of sustainable operations.“We extend our sincere gratitude to our investors for their trust and to our customers for their support. We will continue to focus on the CDMO sector and unlock its boundless potential, striving to establish Intellective Bio as a global leader in the CDMO industry, with the ultimate goal of benefiting more patients.”

Qingsong Capital is a venture-focused private equity investment firm specializing in biotechnology and healthcare. Its management team possesses extensive industry expertise in healthcare and deep experience in private equity investment. We are committed to growing alongside the most innovative biomedical enterprises, driving technological and commercial innovation in China’s life sciences and healthcare sectors. Adhering to a research-driven investment approach, we engage deeply in the development of our portfolio companies, focusing on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, innovative healthcare services, and the intersection of the broader health industry with frontier technologies. Since its inception, the fund has completed investments in numerous star projects across various specialized sectors.

Founded in 2014, Gaorong Capital focuses on early-stage and growth-stage investments, with a particular emphasis on innovative ventures in new consumption, emerging technologies, healthcare, and other sectors. To date, 20 portfolio companies backed by Gaorong Capital have gone public, and more than 30 have achieved valuations exceeding $1 billion. Many of these companies have grown into industry leaders, including Pinduoduo, Huya Live, BOSS Zhipin, Roborock, and Dingdong Maicai. Gaorong Capital remains committed to the healthcare sector, identifying and supporting leading enterprises in digital health, medical services, novel drug development, medical devices, and diagnostics.