Wuhan Ammu Life Tech Secures Tens of Millions RMB in Series A Funding from CCB Healthcare Growth Fund to Advance Early-Stage Cancer Detection

VCBeat has learned that Wuhan Ammunition Life-tech Co., Ltd. (“Wuhan Ammunition”) announced the completion of its tens-of-millions-yuan Series A financing round, with CCB Medical Growth Fund as the investor.This round of financing will be used to accelerate the development and market expansion of the company's early cancer detection products.

Wuhan Ammunition, established in 2015, is committed to building a globally leading platform for cancer screening technologies. It provides precise products and services for early cancer detection, fundamentally reducing cancer incidence and mortality rates while lowering healthcare costs. Previously, the company secured investment from Hybribio (Stock Code: 300639), a domestic leader in cervical cancer screening tests.

“In the past two years, cancer early screening companies have been highly sought after by the capital market. As a cancer early screening company, Wuhan Ammunition primarily relies on”Clinical Big Data, Bioinformatics, Epigenetics, and Novel Biomaterialsand other technologies, focusing on the development of early cancer detection products. Wuhan Ammunition has always been“Early, Precise, Non-invasive, and Convenient”“Guided by this product philosophy, the company has currently completed the development of early detection products for colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, esophageal cancer, endometrial cancer, and other malignancies. Meanwhile, the company is further advancing the R&D of early screening products for additional cancers and expanding into pan-cancer detection. This is the primary reason why the company has attracted significant investor interest,” said Zhang Lianglu, founder of Wuhan Ammunition.

“The early cancer screening market addresses clear pain points and is a sector strongly encouraged for development by the state,” said the head of CCB Medical Growth Fund.Wuhan Ammunition possesses a comprehensive technical platform for the development of cancer screening and diagnostic products, has successfully developed multiple products, and demonstrates a precise understanding of user needs.With its flagship stool DNA test for colorectal cancer, the company offers a product with superior performance and ease of use. Customer feedback has highlighted its distinct advantages, and its market viability has been well established. The company is continuing to expand its portfolio of early-detection products for cancers via bodily fluids and blood. We believe that, bolstered by capital and market resources, Ammunition will drive progress and development in the niche sector of early cancer screening in China.

Cancer is currently the second leading cause of death worldwide. Due to changes in living environments, lifestyles, and work pace, both the mortality and incidence rates of cancer in China continue to rise. The incidence of malignant tumors increases by approximately 3.9% annually, while the mortality rate rises by 2.5% each year.The lack of widespread adoption of early cancer screening is the primary reason for China’s persistently high cancer incidence and mortality rates.The United States began issuing cancer screening guidelines in the late 20th century to promote public awareness of early cancer detection. The American Cancer Society’s latest annual statistical report in 2020 showed that the cancer mortality rate in the United States declined by 29% from 1991 to 2017.

Based on global experience in cancer prevention and control, early prevention and screening are fundamental to reducing cancer incidence and mortality rates. Taking colorectal cancer as an example, the five-year survival rate is nearly 100% when adenomas (precancerous lesions) are detected; it is approximately 94% for Stage I colorectal cancer, around 82% for Stage II tumors, declines to 67% for Stage III tumors, and drops to only 11% for Stage IV tumors. However, 85% of colorectal cancer patients in China are diagnosed at mid-to-late stages, with an early diagnosis rate of less than 15%. Therefore, early screening, early diagnosis, and early treatment of tumors are of significant importance for improving patient survival rates.

Since 2015, next-generation testing technologies, represented by methylation detection, have rapidly developed worldwide, laying a critical foundation for the comprehensive implementation of early cancer screening. Cologuard, a stool DNA-based colorectal cancer screening product developed by Exact Sciences in the United States, has experienced rapid annual sales growth since its market launch and has gained high recognition in the U.S. market, being hailed as a milestone product in molecular diagnostics over the past decade. Subsequently, international emerging leaders such as GRAIL, Guardant Health, Thrive, Freenome, Nucleix, and Genomictree have actively entered the field of early cancer detection, marking the transition of early cancer screening from the laboratory stage to clinical application and market exploration.

Before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, Zhang Lianglu was a pathologist at a hospital. He encountered that most cancer patients he saw in his practice were already in the middle to late stages of the disease, including many young patients, which deeply distressed him. “If these patients could have been diagnosed at an early stage, many of them might even have been completely cured. In contrast, treatment for most patients with mid- to late-stage cancer is painful and costly, yet the therapeutic outcomes are often unsatisfactory.”Recognizing that early screening can save the lives of more cancer patients, Zhang Lianglu resolutely left the hospital and founded Wuhan Ammunition in 2015, becoming one of the earliest pioneers in China’s cancer early screening field.Guided by the vision of “sparing millions of families from the suffering of cancer through early screening,” Ammunition focuses on the research and development, manufacturing, sales, and testing services of non-invasive screening products for globally prevalent malignant tumors.

Wuhan Ammunition's Current Flagship ProductAi Changkang® is a colorectal cancer screening test based on fecal DNA, developed according to the intestinal characteristics of the Chinese population. The product utilizes well-performingComplementary Dual-Target Detection Panel, thereby complementing each other in the detection sensitivity for left-sided and right-sided colorectal cancer, which significantly enhances the product's diagnostic accuracy. Aichangkang® demonstrates superior sensitivity in detecting both colorectal cancer and adenomas (precancerous lesions) compared to similar products on the market. This product is comparable to Cologuard by Exact Sciences in the United States, andThe detection efficiency ratio is more than 10 times that of the Cologuard product.The advantages of Ai Changkang®—painless, non-invasive, and suitable for home sampling—will significantly alleviate the public’s fear of colonoscopy and overcome time constraints, thereby improving compliance with colorectal cancer screening and enhancing the efficient utilization of medical resources.

Compared with blood-based DNA testing, stool DNA testing targets genes derived directly from exfoliated intestinal cells, offering higher sensitivity for colorectal cancer detection and enabling the detection of precancerous lesions (advanced adenomas).According to data from China’s Urban Cancer Early Diagnosis and Treatment Program, the ratio of advanced adenomas to colorectal cancer is approximately 60:1. Therefore, the widespread adoption of AiChangKang® will make colorectal cancer similar to cervical cancer, enabling the detection of large populations at the precancerous lesion stage and nipping colorectal cancer in the bud during this precancerous phase. However, fecal DNA testing faces numerous technical challenges, such as user-unfriendly sample handling, abundant PCR inhibitors, difficulties in sample preservation, the need to account for markers from different regions of the intestine, and the enrichment of extremely trace amounts of target human-derived DNA. Wuhan Ammunition has provided robust solutions to address these technical bottlenecks.

From a policy perspective, policies have become a significant force driving the development of the cancer early screening sector. The 2019 Government Work Report explicitly stated the need to implement cancer prevention and control initiatives, promote preventive screening, early diagnosis and treatment, and key scientific research breakthroughs, with a focus on addressing critical public livelihood issues. Awareness among both physicians and the general public regarding the importance of cancer early screening has also reached a relatively high level. Zhang Lianglu believes that,China's early cancer screening market is on the verge of an explosion, with colorectal cancer screening expected to gain market acceptance more rapidly.

However, Zhang Lianglu also stated, “Currently, there are two major issues in the cancer early screening market:There is a lack of cost-effective cancer early screening products, and public awareness of cancer screening remains relatively weak. However, the most significant issue lies on the industry side: current early screening products are priced relatively high and are not covered by medical insurance.“Next, Wuhan Ammunition will join hands with industry peers to popularize knowledge about early cancer screening, raise public awareness of early detection, and promote the inclusion of early screening products in the national medical insurance catalog. More importantly, Ammunition will focus on the core needs of diagnosis and treatment by providing more cost-effective early screening products to serve millions of families, thereby continuously reducing the incidence and mortality rates of cancer in China.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wuhan Ammunition further demonstrated its sense of social responsibility. Located in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan Ammunition, as a high-tech biotechnology enterprise, contributed to epidemic prevention and control from multiple fronts, fully showcasing the company’s social responsibility and corporate commitment.

During the pandemic, the bioinformatics team at Wuhan Ammunition establishedSEIR Mathematical Model, accurately predicted the scale and duration of the epidemic,It provided scientific predictive guidance for epidemic prevention and control. Upon publication, the study garnered comments and acclaim from over 40,000 experts worldwide. During peer review, the reviewers highly praised its value and recommended that Europe and the Middle East adopt this model to learn from Wuhan’s experience in epidemic prevention and control.

Furthermore, Wuhan Ammunition has developedRT-PCR Nucleic Acid Detection Reagent, and provided instruments, equipment, diagnostic reagents, and nucleic acid testing capacity to support epidemic prevention and control. Meanwhile, it jointly submitted applications with the Medical Research Institute of Wuhan University."Development of a Home-Use Test Strip for Detecting Novel Coronavirus Based on CRISPR-Cas12a"Project: Aiming to Achieve Rapid and At-Home Testing for SARS-CoV-2.

CCB Medical Growth Fund is a venture capital fund under CCB International, operating on a market-oriented basis and focusing on investments in growth-stage healthcare companies. Led by CCB International, the fund was jointly established with high-quality institutions such as Kun Gaoxin Group, with an initial size of RMB 500 million.

Leveraging CCB International’s extensive deal sourcing capabilities, synergy with investment banking services, and the expertise of its specialized healthcare investment team, the Fund combines these strengths with the high-quality healthcare industry resources of its investors to precisely screen for technology commercialization projects in the healthcare sector and accelerate the cultivation of innovative tech enterprises. Drawing on its rich investment and management experience as well as deep industry connections, the Fund provides comprehensive post-investment value-added services to its portfolio companies. The Fund is committed to growing alongside both enterprises and investors.

The CCB Medical Fund is a series of equity investment funds established by CCB International to deploy in the healthcare industry within China. Funds under management include CCB Medical Fund Phase I, CCB Medical Growth Fund, and Jianxing Medical Fund.