Ningkang Ruizhu Secures Tens of Millions in Series A Funding to Advance Organ-Selective Targeted Drug Discovery Platform

VCBeat has learned that Ningkang Ruizhu Biopharmaceutical (Zhuhai) Co., Ltd. recently completed an A-round financing of tens of millions of yuan, with Hanyi Capital and Hengqin Jin Tou as the investors.

With the development of China’s innovative drug industry, an increasing number of Chinese scientists working at multinational pharmaceutical companies are choosing to return to China to embark on their entrepreneurial journeys, with many achieving notable success. Having engaged in drug research and development for many years, these researchers possess profound insights and a comprehensive methodology for innovative drug discovery. Returning to China to start their own ventures provides them with greater opportunities to realize novel ideas that were difficult to implement during their tenure at multinational corporations. Among these new concepts may lie groundbreaking products capable of disrupting existing therapeutic paradigms.

Zhuhai’s Hengqin New Area has recently welcomed two entrepreneurs, Dr. Xiong Yusheng and Dr. Guan Hongping. These high-caliber professionals, who previously served as a research team lead and a biological scientist at Merck & Co., specialize in chemistry and biology, respectively. REZUBIO has leveraged the experts’ decades of experience in their respective fields to seek new breakthroughs in innovative drug development through a comprehensive understanding of pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Xiong Yusheng, one of the two founders of REZUBIO, earned his bachelor’s degree from Wuhan University. In the early years of China’s reform and opening-up, he was selected as part of the first cohort of the China-United States Chemistry Graduate Program (CGP) for advanced studies in the United States. He obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago. Dr. Xiong spent over 20 years working in medicinal chemistry at Merck & Co., Inc. (MSD) in the United States, where he led multiple preclinical projects, as well as early-stage drug target validation and lead compound screening.

Dr. Hongping Guan earned his bachelor’s degree from Beijing Medical University (now Peking University Health Science Center), obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center under the mentorship of a Nobel laureate. He subsequently spent seven years at Merck & Co., Inc. in the United States, engaged in the development of new drugs in the fields of biology and pharmacology.

Both individuals have dedicated decades to their respective fields, consistently publishing in top-tier international journals such as Science, Nature Medicine, and Cell Metabolism. Understanding biological mechanisms and chemical properties is key to determining a drug’s success. During their tenure at Merck & Co., Dr. Yusheng Xiong served as Head of Medicinal Chemistry, while Dr. Hongping Guan served as Head of Biology. Together, they led collaborations on multiple new drug projects, spanning preclinical and clinical stages as well as external partnerships, accumulating extensive experience in drug R&D from target selection and compound optimization to the identification of clinical candidates. Drugs under their leadership have advanced to Phase II clinical trials. Their seamless collaboration has strengthened their partnership, creating a synergistic effect where 1+1>2. This powerful founding duo has enabled REZUBIO to attract significant investor attention based solely on the strength of its team.

In 2016, the two co-founders left Merck & Co. together to seek entrepreneurial opportunities. Over the following two years, they first established a small company in the United States. Then, in 2019, with the support of Hanyi Capital and Hengqin Financial Investment, they founded REZUBIO and established its operations in the Hengqin New Area of Zhuhai. During the site selection process, the founders conducted on-site visits to other biopharmaceutical parks but ultimately chose to settle in the Hengqin New Area of Zhuhai, a region with broad development prospects. The grand blueprint for the Greater Bay Area and the comprehensive supporting services in the Hengqin New Area have injected vibrant momentum into new drug development in the region. The Hengqin New Area has provided REZUBIO with comprehensive policy support, helping the company accelerate its transition from the initial infrastructure phase to the project development stage.

REZUBIO’s current primary research focuses on three main areas: autoimmune diseases, tumor immunology, and metabolic disorders. Its technical strengths lie in the development of tissue-specific targeted molecules, such as liver- and gut-targeted therapeutics, to achieve differentiated advantages characterized by high efficacy and low side effects. The company’s projects are currently in the early stages of development. “We have identified opportunities in these fields through our past research. We aim to leverage our years of accumulated knowledge and experience to build our own drug discovery platform and launch several innovative drugs in the shortest possible time. This would fulfill a long-held aspiration of ours,” said Dr. Xiong Yusheng.

Biopharmaceuticals is a field characterized by high entry barriers, long development cycles, significant risks, and substantial returns. For early-stage biotech startups, identifying the right and unique market entry point is crucial to success. Innovation is the most vital driving force in the biopharmaceutical industry, a fact that is receiving increasing attention in China. After years of development, China’s pharmaceutical sector has gradually transitioned from a focus on generic drugs to one centered on innovation.

REZUBIO’s innovations are manifested in both chemical and biological dimensions: by integrating medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry, and artificial intelligence, the company designs small molecules targeting specific tissues or organs; meanwhile, leveraging profound insights into targets and mechanisms of drug action, and guided by unmet medical needs as a market orientation, it identifies new indications. From its inception, REZUBIO has positioned its R&D pipeline around innovation.

Most of REZUBIO’s projects focus on targets that are relatively mature and have clinically validated efficacy. Unlike other innovative drug companies, REZUBIO has re-optimized the molecular structures of these drugs to confer tissue-targeting specificity while maintaining activity against their specific targets. This characteristic enables the drugs to accumulate in specific tissues and organs, thereby enhancing therapeutic efficacy, avoiding adverse reactions associated with systemic administration, and expanding into indications previously inaccessible to earlier-generation drugs. Such design not only secures independent intellectual property rights for REZUBIO’s products but also creates new opportunities for developing novel indications for existing targets and achieving differentiated competition with other therapeutics.

In addition to the tissue-specific targeted therapies previously introduced, REZUBIO is also striving to accelerate the development of targeted drugs for rare diseases. China’s newly revised Drug Administration Law explicitly stipulates that priority review and approval shall be granted to new drugs for rare diseases that are in urgent clinical need. Similarly, the United States has enacted the Orphan Drug Act to promote the research and development of drugs for rare diseases.

Accelerated review of orphan drugs has created a new pathway for the market launch of targeted therapies. Therapeutic targets for rare diseases may also be effective in other indications. Orphan drugs can expand their approved indications through post-marketing clinical studies after gaining rapid regulatory approval. Since the safety profiles of already marketed drugs have been validated in previous clinical trials, conducting subsequent clinical trials is relatively easier. REZUBIO is currently developing a novel-targeted orphan drug for immune-mediated diseases, aiming to achieve rapid market approval through orphan drug policies and subsequently expand the drug’s indications via further clinical research.

“We aim to approach new drug development with a more open mindset, exploring every potential direction. Only through continuous innovation can a company maintain an unbeatable position in a competitive landscape.” Regarding future product development, Dr. Guan Hongping has demonstrated a more open and inclusive attitude. REZUBIO’s competitive barriers lie primarily in the extensive R&D experience accumulated by its two founders over the years and their strong collaborative synergy. This inimitable competitive advantage empowers REZUBIO to pursue a wider variety of R&D pathways.

Currently, the company focuses on preclinical drug development for novel targets and new indications. In future clinical stages, it will adopt a strategy combining independent R&D with project collaborations to maximize its core strengths while accelerating clinical progress.

“REZUBIO is currently constructing its R&D center and building its team, but its R&D activities are already well underway, thanks to China’s mature CRO industry. ‘As a biotech startup, we need to fully leverage the CRO R&D ecosystem that has been developed in China over recent years, capitalize on our strengths in novel drug target identification, indication selection, and small-molecule drug innovation, and rapidly advance REZUBIO’s multiple R&D projects through a combination of outsourced collaborations and internal development. At the same time, we are establishing our own team and R&D center to master and develop our core technologies,’ said Dr. Xiong Yusheng. ‘Moreover, having our own team enables greater operational efficiency.’”

Regarding the future development of REZUBIO, its two founders expressed full confidence: “With the support of the industrial park and the favorable environment for innovative drugs in China, our future prospects are promising. This is a rare opportunity for us. We will seize this chance to develop innovative drugs that target not only the domestic market but also the international market.”

Dr. Jin Fenyu, Founding Partner of Hanyi Capital, stated: “The powerful combination and efficient execution capabilities of Dr. Xiong and Dr. Guan at REZUBIO are essential. Dr. Xiong’s expertise in medicinal chemistry, coupled with Dr. Guan’s understanding of biological mechanisms, enables REZUBIO to rapidly identify the correct R&D direction through continuous experimentation. This constitutes a key investment moat for us.”

In addition to the complementary expertise of the two founders and their accumulated years of experience in new drug development, Mr. Hu Chuanwei, Vice President of Hengqin Financial Investment Group, believes that the team’s R&D direction is also highly promising: “REZUBIO’s current product pipeline focuses on internationally hot areas, with competing products still in relatively early stages of research. Therefore, there is certainly no issue with the overall strategic direction. Coupled with the founders’ extensive experience and the opportunities they have identified during past R&D efforts, we are confident that REZUBIO’s future development will be very bright.”