ComMedX Secures Pre-A Funding to Advance AI and Computational Chemistry-Driven Drug Discovery

VCBeat learned at the earliest opportunity that on August 16, 2021,Computational Medicine (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (“ComMedX”) Officially Announces Completion of Pre-A Round Financing Amounting to Tens of Millions of RMBThis funding round was led by BAI Capital, with further support from FreeS Fund, the lead investor in the angel round. China Renaissance Alpha served as the exclusive financial advisor for this financing.The funds raised in this round will be primarily used for the development of an innovative small-molecule drug platform based on three-dimensional protein structures, as well as for computation-driven new drug research and development.

ComMedX was co-founded in 2020 by Dr. Wan Xiaobo, together with Dr. Huang Niu, Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing; Dr. Shan Bei, Founder of Baifang Yingku Pharmaceutical Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.; and Dr. Ma Rui, Partner at FreeS Fund. The company completed its angel financing round at the end of 2020, led by FreeS Fund with participation from Baifang Yingku.ComMedX is dedicated to the rapid screening and optimization of lead compounds based on the three-dimensional structures of target proteins, facilitating the end-to-end development of innovative small-molecule drugs. This is achieved by integrating multidisciplinary R&D technologies, including ultra-large-scale molecular docking, combinatorial chemical database construction, artificial intelligence-driven data analysis, structural biology, and medicinal chemistry.To date, Conmedison has completed the construction and deployment of its computing platform, attracting a cohort of interdisciplinary talents from top domestic and international universities, and securing project collaboration agreements with multiple renowned pharmaceutical companies in China. Meanwhile, the project has made significant progress through continuous and rapid advancement.

Dr. Wan Xiaobo, Founder and CEO of Kangmaidisen, stated: “Conmedison focuses on leveraging technologies such as computational chemistry and artificial intelligence to rapidly explore a broader chemical space based on the three-dimensional structures of specific drug targets, identifying novel lead compound scaffolds with development potential and advancing innovative drug R&D. Through this round of financing, we aim to further promote the development and testing of new computational tools for our drug discovery platform, as well as strengthen our medicinal chemistry R&D team, providing the most professional digital solutions for drug design and physical molecules for global innovative drug development.

Dr. Huang Niu, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Comedison, stated:“In the post-AlphaFold era, leveraging target 3D structural information for drug lead design and structural optimization will undoubtedly play a more significant role in new drug development.”“We believe that, through the efforts of Dr. Wan Xiaobo and his colleagues, Comedison will provide professional services in structure-based drug design to domestic institutions dedicated to innovative drug R&D, thereby advancing China’s pharmaceutical R&D from imitative innovation to original innovation.”

Hou Xiaolin, Vice President of Investment at BAI Capital, stated that artificial intelligence continues to achieve breakthrough progress in the field of new drug development. The close integration and rapid feedback between computational science and life sciences have significantly improved the efficiency of new drug R&D. We remain firmly optimistic about the excellent team led by Dr. Wan Xiaobo and Dr. Huang Niu. Leveraging ultra-large-scale molecular docking technology, artificial intelligence, and high-throughput structural biology, the team can rapidly screen and design lead compounds based on the three-dimensional structures of target proteins. We believe that Conmedison is poised to become the digital infrastructure for next-generation innovative drug development in the near future.

Dr. Ma Rui, Partner at FreeS Fund, stated: “Kangmai boasts the strongest team in China and even globally in the fields of computational chemistry and computer-aided drug design (CADD). The company focuses on leveraging computational chemistry and AI to perform rapid and accurate molecular docking against ultra-large libraries containing 1–10 billion compounds, thereby identifying and designing lead candidates. Remarkably, the team also possesses experience in advancing first-in-class drugs into clinical trials. Within just six months after FreeS Fund completed its angel investment, Kangmai secured orders from multiple pharmaceutical companies. We believe that Kangmai will continue to strengthen its capabilities in AI-driven drug discovery, providing robust and high-quality empowerment to China’s original innovative drugs amidst the booming wave of novel therapeutics.”

Wang Qi, Senior Vice President of China Renaissance’s Financial Advisory Division and Head of the Alpha Group, stated, “In an era where artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing the pharmaceutical industry, physics-based molecular docking has become a critical component in compound screening and design. Conmedison boasts an internationally leading ultra-large molecular library and profound foundational understanding of molecules, while continuously accumulating scarce three-dimensional data to enable more precise molecular design and optimization. This approach holds the promise of transforming drug screening and design paradigms at their source, thereby accelerating innovative drug discovery. We are firmly confident in the company’s team and believe that Conmedison will continue to break new ground in innovation, contributing to the development of novel drugs in China.”