Viva Biotech Innovation Partnership Summit Successfully Held in Shanghai, Focused on Incubation and Commercial Translation

On November 8, 2019, the 2019 Viva Biotech Innovation Cooperation Summit, themed “Starting Anew, Collaborating for the Long Run,” was held in Pudong, Shanghai. A reporter from VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) attended the event and provided coverage.

Founders of over 30 innovative drug and biopharmaceutical companies incubated and invested in by the Viva Biotech Innovation Center (VBI), along with more than 100 representatives from investment institutions and heads of R&D and business development at pharmaceutical enterprises, attended this conference. Together, they explored how to support global biopharmaceutical startups in achieving the “0 to 1” transformation and commercialization, paving the way for “Innovation, Collaboration, and Growth.”

Speakers at this summit include: Dang Qun, Vice President of CSPC Pharmaceutical Group; Cui Zhiping, Assistant to the President of Fosun Group; Zhu Jia, Managing Director of Bain Capital; Gan Shixiong, Founder of Shengshan Capital; Xie Yijing, Managing Director of China Renaissance; Chen Yidan, Executive Partner of GTJA Capital; Zhu Zhongyuan, Partner at Tonghe Yucheng; Chen Penghui, Partner at Boyuan Capital; Zhang Dan, Chairman of Fortune Pharma; and Li Guochun, Partner at Yuansheng Venture Capital, among others.

2019 was a pivotal and highly challenging year for the healthcare and life sciences industry as well as the capital markets, and it marked a milestone year for Viva Biotech. In May 2019, Viva Biotech successfully listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. Meanwhile, its Viva Biotech Innovation Center, serving as the platform for the company’s investment incubation and its innovative “Equity for Service” (EFS) business model, continued to develop and expand.

Dr. Mao Chen, Chairman and CEO of Viva Biotech

In his opening remarks, Dr. Mao Chen, Chairman and CEO of Viva Biotech, stated, “Biopharmaceuticals is one of the most promising sectors in China today, providing the ideal environment for nurturing biotechnology startups. Leveraging its robust drug discovery technology platform, Viva Biotech will serve more high-potential biopharmaceutical startups, empowering their visionary ideas.”

Other attendees also shared their insights on pharmaceutical innovation and the investment landscape: biopharmaceutical startups need not cluster exclusively in the hottest therapeutic areas, such as oncology. Innovative drugs targeting diverse fields and indications also meet varied market demands and hold significant value. Differentiated innovation will garner greater attention and favor from capital investors.

At the summit, Dr. Xu Daqiang, Chief Business Officer of Viva Biotech, introduced to the attendees the positioning and model of the Viva BioInnovator: “Viva BioInnovator focuses on discovering, investing in, and serving highly medically valuable biopharmaceutical innovation concepts across global markets and therapeutic areas, as well as high-potential startups that creatively address unmet clinical needs. Viva Biotech is committed to establishing itself as a vibrant ‘one-stop’ resource center and open collaboration platform for biopharmaceutical startups. By fostering extensive collaborations with investors and industry partners, we aim to build a robust ecosystem that continuously creates greater value for our portfolio companies and achieves win-win outcomes for all stakeholders.”

Dr. Daqiang Xu, Chief Business Officer of Viva Biotech

Most of the biopharmaceutical startups attending the summit are from North America and China, with their primary R&D pipelines largely targeting unmet clinical needs in the current market. Meanwhile, innovative biopharmaceutical enterprises face multiple constraints, including high technical barriers, long innovation cycles, and a lack of sustained funding and service support, creating an urgent need for dual support from both the biopharmaceutical industry chain and the capital market. Scientists, large pharmaceutical companies, and the capital market share a complementary and mutually reinforcing relationship; only through organic communication among these three parties can long-term collaboration in biopharmaceutical innovation be achieved.

In the afternoon, executives from numerous renowned domestic and international investment firms and pharmaceutical companies continued to gather for a roundtable discussion to explore cutting-edge scientific research topics in the field of new drug development. The themes coveredInnovative Drugs in Metabolic Diseases, New Drugs in Oncology, and New Drugs in CNS Disordersand three other major fields.

(Highlights from the Roundtable Forum)

At this summit, nine companies—Qiyu, Youbo, Arthrosi, Acura, ABM, Blue Oak, Saverna, VivaVision, and Forkhead—delivered a series of impressive roadshows to the attendees.

Viva Biotech’s mission is to serve as an incubator for innovative biotechnology companies worldwide. The company has developed a highly scalable business model that combines the traditional Cash-for-Service (CFS) model with its proprietary Equity-for-Service (EFS) model.

The Group’s CFS business provides world-leading structure-based drug discovery services for the preclinical development of innovative drugs for global biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients. Its services comprehensively address customers’ needs in early-stage drug discovery, spanning target protein expression and structural studies, drug screening, lead compound optimization, and the identification of clinical candidate compounds.

The Group’s EFS business also provides drug discovery and incubation services to high-potential biotech start-ups worldwide. As of June 30, 2019, Viva Biotech had provided drug discovery services to 388 biotech and pharmaceutical clients globally, studied more than 1,000 independent drug targets, delivered over 11,000 independent protein structures to clients, and incubated a total of 37 early-stage R&D projects.