Favorsun Medical: Pioneering a New 'Silk' Road in Biomedical Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

How Hot Is the Upstream Sector of Medical Devices and the Aesthetic Medicine Industry?

According to the "2021 Report on Investment and Financing in the Medical Aesthetics Industry," there were a total of 35 investment and financing events in the medical aesthetics sector in 2021. In terms of amount, financing and acquisitions for upstream products accounted for approximately 87.64% of the full-year total. In August 2021, a consortium led by Qiaokang Capital announced the completion of its equity acquisition of Hugel, South Korea’s largest medical aesthetics product company. Hugel is the first Korean manufacturer to obtain marketing approval for botulinum toxin in China.

In the same year, Mindray Medical announced the acquisition of 100% equity in HyTest Ltd. and its subsidiaries for a total consideration of €545 million. HyTest is one of the four major global suppliers of core raw materials for the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry.

Upstream raw materials are gradually moving from the background to the forefront. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply of imported raw materials has further driven domestic companies to overcome the bottleneck challenges in raw material sourcing.

Fuxiang Medical is one such innovative materials company,Core to the development are consumable products such as absorbable interference screws, silk fibroin biodegradable bone anchors, and 3D-printed cartilage, alongside biological patches and skin wound repair membranes (also known as artificial skin), all based on silk fibroin (also known as silk protein).。

Backed by years of accumulated expertise in silk fibroin technology and a polymer materials research team from Fudan University, the company, founded in 2020, has previously completed an angel financing round of nearly RMB 10 million and is now launching its Pre-A financing round.

Fudan University, commercialization of scientific research achievements, and PhD-led teams are all labels attached to the “young” company Fuxiang Medical.

Silk fibroin is a natural high-molecular-weight fibrous protein extracted from silk, accounting for approximately 70%–80% of the silk content.Silk fibroin exhibits favorable mechanical properties and biocompatibility, is unlikely to trigger rejection responses, and can be degraded and absorbed by the human body.In recent years, silk fibroin has been widely applied in the fields of medical aesthetics, medical devices, and daily chemical products.

Fudan University undoubtedly serves as the “processor” of silk. Professor Shao Zhengzhong and Professor Chen Xin from the Department of Macromolecular Science lead the research group on biological macromolecules,For many years, I have been dedicated to basic research and application development of regenerated silk fibroin.. As early as 2009, Professor Chen Xin’s team successfully fabricated regenerated silk fibroin fibers with superior mechanical properties via wet spinning, achieving both higher tensile strength and fracture energy than natural silk.

Fuer Medical develops innovative products based on the advanced polymer material technology accumulated over many years by professors at Fudan University.

Previously,Silk fibroin raw materials remain largely at the laboratory stage and cannot be mass-produced.。

In the industry, silk fibroin is primarily stored in solution form. This approach not only incurs high preparation costs but also precludes long-term storage and transportation, as silk fibroin is shear-sensitive and prone to denaturation and flocculent precipitation during transit. Such precipitation leads to heterogeneity in the raw material. Since certain medical devices, such as bone screws, demand exceptionally high uniformity and consistency from their raw materials, this instability renders the solution-based form unsuitable for such applications.

In 2019, the team led by Liu YezhuoPreparation of silk fibroin powder with high molecular weight, high stability, high consistency, and controllable molecular weight distribution from silk fibroin solution via an innovative process. This approach not only reduces processing costs but also allows the silk fibroin powder to be stored for an extended period, remaining stable for 2–3 years without issue.

With the support of Fudan University’s polymer research team, the Fuxiang Medical team has not only mastered the preparation technology for silk fibroin raw materials but also achieved mass production, thereby meeting the conditions for industrialization.

Currently, Fuxiang Medical possesses nearly 1,500 square meters of production and R&D facilities.The company’s team holds more than 30 core patents, including over 20 invention patents and more than 10 utility model patents.Moreover,Fudan University has acquired an equity stake in Fuxiang Medical. Professor Shao Zhengzhong and Professor Chen Xin serve as both shareholders and advisors to Fuxiang Medical, marking the transition of scientific achievement commercialization into a phase of internal collaboration.。

Under the leadership of Liu Yezhuo, the management team comprises not only seasoned “veterans” from the medical device industry but also professionals with expertise in industry research and management. In addition to its internal core talent, Fuxiang Medical has also enlisted external “support.”The company collaborates with experts from renowned hospitals, including Zhongshan Hospital, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, and Changhai Hospital, to jointly develop medical products.。

“We are a biomaterials supplier, as well as a medical company.” Liu Yezhuo defines Fuxiang Medical in this way.

As an innovative materials supplier, Fuxiang Medical can provide downstream enterprises in the daily chemicals, medical aesthetics, and medical device sectors withRaw Material Product “Soluble Silk Fibroin Powder SFMAGIC®”, with pricing benchmarked against the raw material price of hyaluronic acid.In 2021, the product's sales revenue exceeded RMB 1 million.If a company follows the conventional path of medical device R&D, it may take two to three years to achieve profitability. However, as an upstream raw material supplier, Fuxiang Medical has possessed self-sustaining revenue capabilities since its inception.

In the medical sector, Fuxiang Medical, leveraging silk fibroin as its core raw material, focuses on tissue engineering and repair, targeting the aesthetic medicine and sports medicine markets.

Sports medicine has emerged as another hotly contested niche within the highly saturated orthopedics market, and the Winter Olympics have further fueled its growth.According to statistics, the global sports medicine market size will exceed $9 billion in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 8%.

Operating in the booming sports medicine market, Fuxiang Medical adopts a strategy of “leveraging strengths and avoiding weaknesses” in product selection. While silk fibroin cannot match titanium or magnesium alloys in terms of mechanical strength, it offers superior biocompatibility, biodegradability, and safe degradation products. Therefore, Fuxiang Medical has developed absorbable interference screws and other non-load-bearing bone anchors, as well as artificial ligaments.

Compared with the currently mainstream bone screw materials, such as alloys and polylactic acid, silk fibroin bone screws exhibit mechanical strength that is closer to that of human bone and possess superior biocompatibility. Furthermore, silk fibroin allows for fluorescence imaging within the human body, facilitating postoperative follow-up for patients.

The development of artificial ligaments is based on the collaboration between Professor Chen Xin’s team and Professor Chen Shiyi’s team at Huashan Hospital, among others. Functional lithium saponite was incorporated into regenerated silk fibroin fibers, and the resulting regenerated silk fibroin/lithium saponite hybrid fibers were woven into artificial ligaments. Compared with artificial ligaments woven from natural degummed silk or pure regenerated silk fibroin fibers, these hybrid fiber-based ligaments exhibit mechanical properties that more closely resemble those of the rat autologous anterior cruciate ligament, making them suitable as materials for artificial ligaments.

In the medical aesthetics sector, Fuxiang Medical is developing products such as artificial prostheses, medical-grade facial masks, and surgical sutures. Silk fibroin has long held an unshakable position in the field of medical aesthetics, although it has been primarily used for skin repair.

Liu Yezhuo stated, “Our fibroin raw material readily forms films, so we aim to develop biological dressings for the treatment of burns and scalds. Moreover, many students in our laboratory previously used fibroin to wash their hands after experiments; over time, it was observed that the male students’ hands became more aesthetically pleasing than those of their female counterparts. In terms of overall performance, fibroin can replace collagen and hyaluronic acid. We have decided to enter the market through medical aesthetics, focusing on tissue repair engineering.”

As a biomaterials company, Fuxiang Medical’s advantage lies in its ability to precisely control the molecular weight of silk fibroin raw materials and modify the materials based on specific requirements.For example, the R&D team can fabricate surgical sutures via wet spinning and incorporate growth factors to induce cell proliferation.

Overall, Fuxiang Medical’s product portfolio in the medical sector can be categorized into “points, lines, planes, and volumes”: point-like raw material sericin powder; linear products such as artificial ligaments and surgical sutures; planar products including hernia repair meshes and artificial skin; and volumetric products comprising sericin-based bone screw blanks and hydrogel materials (dermal fillers and drug-eluting gels).

Among them,Silk fibroin bone screws and artificial ligaments have completed animal studies, with clinical trials to follow; the artificial skin for burn wound repair has been submitted for type testing.。

Backed by innovative silk fibroin raw material technology and supported by a robust R&D team and panel of expert advisors, Fuxiang Medical is poised to further expand its industrial footprint. How far this science-driven enterprise can go on its commercialization journey remains to be seen; only time will tell.

Reference: “Fudan University Biomacromolecule Research Group Makes Progress in the Functionalization of Silk Fibroin Fibers” — Polymer Materials

"2021 Medical Aesthetics Industry Investment and Financing Report" — VCBeat Institute

“Silk from Silkworms and Spiders and Their Silk Proteins” — Shao Zhengzhong