JOINN Biologics Secures $60 Million Series A Financing Led by China Healthcare Capital to Expand Global Biologics CDMO Capabilities

When it comes to drug safety evaluation service providers, Beijing Joinn Laboratories Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as “Joinn Laboratories”) stands out as the leading enterprise among domestic companies. This publicly listed company, which initially entered the market through safety assessment services, has set its sights on the broader biologics service market by establishing JOINN Biologics Inc. (abbreviated as “JOINN Biologics”). The company plans to provide biopharmaceutical enterprises with custom development and manufacturing (CDMO) services of the highest standard.

VCBeat has learned that Joinn Biologics officially signed the agreement to complete its $60 million Series A financing round on December 4. The round was led by Huagai Capital, with participation from Hangzhou Chaosheng Investment Management Co., Ltd., Hong Kong Hualian Holdings, Xiangtang Capital, and other institutions. The funds will be primarily used to build a 100,000-liter production capacity at Joinn Biologics’ Beijing base in China and to expand its business operations in both China and the United States.

Joinn Biologics will serve as an expansion and extension of Joinn Laboratories’ service portfolio, focusing deeply on the field of biologics. Leveraging its R&D and manufacturing bases in both China and the United States, it provides global innovative drug developers with one-stop solutions spanning cell line development, developability studies, process scale-up and optimization, quality research, pilot-scale production, and commercial manufacturing.

“We began discussing the establishment of Joinn Biologics in 2017, with clients playing a major driving role,” Feng Yuxia, founder and chairman of Joinn Biologics, told VCBeat.

During the provision of safety assessment services, Joinn Laboratories’ team frequently encountered similar situations where clients had secured experimental slots, but their samples failed to be produced in time. In response to the strong demand from biopharmaceutical clients, Joinn Laboratories established Joinn Biologics in 2018 to provide its partners with an expanded range of CDMO services for biologics.

As a publicly listed company, Joinn Laboratories plans to launch CDMO services while further expanding its existing safety assessment business. Taking into account the characteristics of CDMO business development and the needs for service teams and technical personnel, Joinn Laboratories has decided to spin off Joinn Biologics as an independent entity for financing purposes. As a shareholder, Joinn Laboratories will provide strong support to Joinn Biologics’ operations.

Relying on its safety assessment services, Joinn Laboratories has accumulated extensive experience and a strong industry reputation over the years, earning widespread recognition from its partners. Among the new antibody drugs accepted by the CFDA in the past five years, 65% had their safety evaluations provided and completed by Joinn Laboratories. This figure rises to 73% in the CAR-T field and 85% in the gene therapy sector.

These biopharmaceutical companies, which have established deep collaborations with Joinn Laboratories, are highly likely to be directly converted into business partners for Joinn Biologics. This represents one of the key strategic advantages enabling Joinn Biologics to enter the CDMO sector.

Currently, Joinn Biologics has established collaborative partnerships with numerous pharmaceutical companies both in China and abroad. Feng Yuxia stated to VCBeat, “Joinn Biologics treats all clients equally; whether they are large enterprises or small businesses, we will spare no effort to provide them with the highest quality services.”

“Within the biopharmaceutical industry, there is widespread optimism regarding CDMOs; however, China has long suffered from a shortage of specialized professionals in this field. The turnover rate among top-tier talent is extremely high, as everyone strives to attract exceptional individuals to their teams,” said Feng Yuxia.

China has long faced a severe shortage of talent in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. From the outset, Joinn Biologics turned its attention overseas, starting in San Francisco, USA, and recruiting highly experienced senior professionals across all operational areas.

Dr. Tao He (left) and Dr. Shusheng Geng (right), Co-founders of Joinn Biologics

Both co-founders, Dr. He Tao and Dr. Geng Shusheng, have accumulated over 20 years of experience in research, development, and management within the field of biopharmaceuticals. They have each led and directly participated in the development of multiple biologic drugs that have successfully received clinical trial approval or reached the market.

Meanwhile, the two complement each other in their respective areas of expertise: Dr. He Tao is a senior expert in the developability assessment of macromolecular drug candidates and pharmaceutical characterization analysis, while Dr. Geng Shusheng has extensive experience in cell line construction and process optimization and scale-up.

Other core team members have also served for many years at renowned pharmaceutical companies both domestically and internationally. To date, Joinn Biologics has assembled a core technical team of nearly 200 professionals, including approximately 80 experts with overseas work experience. Nearly 20% of these experts possess more than 15 years of industry experience, enabling the company to provide global clients with one-stop solutions spanning cell line development, developability studies, process development, quality studies, and pilot-scale through commercial manufacturing.

For cell lines required for drug R&D and manufacturing, some CDMOs opt to use cell lines licensed from other institutions or even those without clear intellectual property rights. This may result in clients having to pay long-term IP royalties during later-stage R&D and production, or even face intellectual property risks.

Joinn Biologics’ engineered cell lines, which are available for pilot-scale and commercial production and come with full intellectual property rights, thoroughly resolve this issue, helping client companies significantly save on commercial IP costs.

In the field of biological drug CDMO, a group of foreign companies led by Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) have developed relatively maturely. Facing these mature CDMO enterprises, Feng Yuxia believes that Joinn Biologics still possesses unique competitiveness: “Our talent and R&D production facilities are also at an international first-class level, with no issues in quality whatsoever. However, our team is more diligent, giving us a clear advantage in efficiency.”

According to our understanding, the production scale of Joinn Biologics’ U.S. manufacturing facility is 1,000 L × 2×500L+200L, with the Beijing production base in China configured as 2×200L+2×500L. The funds from this financing round will be primarily used to construct a 100,000-liter-scale drug substance and related formulation production line in Beijing that complies with GMP standards in China, the United States, and the European Union. This capacity expansion signifies that Joinn Laboratories will rapidly scale up its operations in the future, supporting more R&D enterprises in pursuing dual regulatory filings in China and the U.S. and implementing multi-site production strategies.

Although Joinn Biologics’ current scale cannot yet compete with the world’s leading CDMOs, this size is better suited to its present stage of development. Its service quality and capabilities are comparable to those of large CDMOs, while it offers greater flexibility in meeting client needs than larger enterprises—a model that aligns more closely with the requirements of domestic biopharmaceutical companies.

In the future, Joinn Biologics will continue to expand its business scope by incorporating more cutting-edge biopharmaceutical products. Cell therapy, gene therapy, oncolytic viruses, recombinant proteins, and other related businesses are all within Joinn Biologics’ strategic planning.

“In this regard, we aim to start at a high level by partnering with leading pharmaceutical companies to serve more biotech firms,” said Feng Yuxia.

Regarding this investment, Zeng Zhiqiang, Managing Partner of Huagai Capital’s Healthcare Fund, stated: “Huagai Healthcare has consistently adhered to an investment strategy of partnering with leaders in niche sectors. We remain firmly optimistic about the significant opportunities in the CRO and CDMO fields, driven by the global—particularly Chinese—surge in innovative drug development. Joinn Laboratories has cultivated its presence in the biopharmaceutical CRO sector for many years, growing into an industry leader. In addition to its robust technical capabilities and high-quality service system, the company serves more than 60% of biopharmaceutical enterprises in China as clients, enjoying an outstanding reputation and strong brand recognition. This has laid a solid foundation for its future expansion into extended services such as CDMO.”

“We look forward to the strong partnership between Huagai Medical Fund and Joinn Laboratories. Leveraging its strategic layout and resources in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare services sectors, Huagai will assist Joinn Biologics in rapidly growing into a formidable competitor in the global biopharmaceutical CDMO arena.”

Founded in early 2018, Joinn Biologics is a subsidiary in which Joinn Laboratories holds an equity stake. It is committed to becoming the most trusted and globally leading biopharmaceutical CDMO. Joinn Biologics boasts a core technical team with extensive industry experience and in-depth knowledge of Chinese and international new drug regulations, and possesses fully proprietary engineered cell lines. Leveraging its R&D and manufacturing bases in both China and the United States, the company provides one-stop solutions for global innovative drug developers, covering cell line development, developability studies, process scale-up and optimization, quality studies, pilot-scale production, and commercial manufacturing.

Huagai Capital is a private equity investment firm co-founded by professionals from renowned domestic and international investment institutions. With the vision of "becoming a local asset management institution with global influence," the company focuses on private equity investments in the Chinese market and is committed to fostering the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into industry leaders. Currently, it manages multiple equity investment funds, including healthcare, TMT, and cultural industry funds, with assets under management exceeding RMB 15 billion.