GemPharmatech Secures RMB 160 Million Series A Funding from CDH Investments and Sinopharm to Power Global Innovative Drug Discovery with Advanced Animal Models

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: biobeat1) has learned that on June 3, 2019, Jiangsu Jicui Yaokang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of its RMB 160 million Series A financing, jointly invested by CDH Investments and Sinopharm Holding. The funds raised will be primarily used to develop model animal strains, establish new domestic facilities, and expand into overseas markets, thereby supporting global life sciences research and clinical development of new drugs, with the aim of becoming a world-class supplier of model animals.

GemPharmatech, established in 2017, is a high-tech company specializing in the development, application, supply, and standardization of model animals such as gene-edited mice. By collaborating with scientists in global biomedical research, as well as new drug developers and CRO companies, the company facilitates preclinical mechanistic and pharmacodynamic evaluations for pharmaceutical enterprises and research clients both domestically and internationally. Within less than two years since its inception, the company launched the “Spotted Mouse Project” to establish conditional knockout strains for all protein-coding genes across the genome, aiming to systematically identify therapeutic targets for diseases; it introduced the “Immune Checkpoint Humanization Project” and the “Humanized Tumor Immunology Resource Bank” to provide core tools for the development and validation of macromolecular drugs targeting tumor immunity-related pathways; and it initiated the “Germ-Free Mouse Project” to offer critical support for the research and application development of symbiotic microorganisms.

GemPharmatech is committed to building the world’s largest resource bank of mouse and rat strains. It currently holds over 8,000 genetically engineered mouse strains, including nearly 100 popular tumor immunology mouse models, thereby providing the vast majority of mouse models required for pharmaceutical development in China and globally. The company has accumulated more than 750 clients, covering most pharmaceutical companies, CROs, and research institutions in China. These include renowned pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, GSK, Hengrui Medicine, and BeiGene; leading CROs such as WuXi AppTec, CrownBio, and Joinn Laboratories; as well as numerous prestigious research institutions and universities, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Double First-Class universities.

In layman's terms, model animals are experimental animals used as substitutes for humans in research, with mice considered the most important model organisms. Model animals serve as the “gold standard” for validating the efficacy of preclinical drug candidates, permeating every stage of the pharmaceutical R&D industry chain. They are core resources in translational medicine and have long been one of the bottlenecks constraining innovative drug development in China. For instance, while there has been a persistent lack of robust animal models for studying type 2 diabetes, the DB mouse model—based on knockout of the leptin receptor gene (db)—enables researchers to simulate human-like symptoms at the whole-animal level, including polyphagia, polydipsia, polyuria, obesity, hyperglycemia, increased insulin secretion, and pathological changes in the liver and pancreas. This model effectively facilitates research into the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and the development of therapeutic drugs.

The world’s largest center for model mice and rats is The Jackson Laboratory in the United States, which offers approximately 10,000 strains of model mice. At the beginning of this century, there was a significant gap between China and developed countries in the overall development and application of mouse models. After returning to China, Professor Gao Xiang and his colleagues began establishing China’s own Genetic Engineering Mouse Resource Center, successfully developing the first conditional mouse strain in the country. They established a mouse application and industrialization base that aligns with international standards, promotes shared standardization, and adheres to high-quality requirements. This facility ranks first in Asia and second globally, playing a pivotal role in building a national strategic resource of model animals at scale. GemPharmatech, spun off from the National Genetic Engineering Mouse Resource Center, is a key industrialization base for mouse model resources in China and will significantly advance and safeguard innovative research and development in the nation’s biopharmaceutical sector.

GemPharmatech was founded in 2017 under the leadership of Professor Gao Xiang. Professor Gao previously established and served as Director of the National Resource Center for Mutant Mice. The management team at GemPharmatech originated from the operational management team of the Nanjing University–Nanjing Institute of Biomedicine. Professor Gao aims to guide the current team in maintaining their sense of urgency and momentum for rapid growth, with the goal of further developing GemPharmatech into the world’s largest supplier of model mouse and rat resources.

Mr. Wang Lin, Founding Partner of CDH Investments, the lead investor, stated: “GemPharmatech has established significant technical and know-how barriers through its deep expertise and innovation in the field of gene-edited animal models. The R&D-focused management team at GemPharmatech, led by Professor Gao Xiang, was formerly part of China’s ‘national team.’ They possess the strength, passion, and methodology to succeed. We are confident that they will successfully bring high-quality model animals developed in China to the global market.”

Dr. Liu Dan, Executive Director of the Innovation and Growth Fund at CDH Investments, added, “China’s pharmaceutical R&D has gone through two stages—follow-on generic production and imitative innovation—and is now in a transitional period toward original innovation. Genetically engineered animal models are essential experimental tools in early-stage scientific research and preclinical drug development, significantly improving the success rate of drug development while substantially reducing costs. Companies like GemPharmatech will provide robust model and platform support for pharmaceutical development in China and globally.”

The life sciences sector has long been a key strategic focus for CDH Innovation and Growth Fund. The team is committed to a dual-pronged approach: on one hand, focusing on important therapeutic sub-segments and projects addressing significant unmet clinical needs; on the other, conducting systematic analyses and industry research across diverse platform technologies ranging from small molecules to large molecules. This strategy aims to identify and systematically invest in leading enterprises within these niche sectors, supporting the finest teams and industry leaders. Guided by this strategy, CDH Innovation and Growth Fund has made investments in HitGen (Chengdu), a new drug discovery platform centered on DNA-encoded libraries; Harbour Biomed, a platform company specializing in fully human antibodies; Keymed Biosciences, a leading domestic developer of tumor immunotherapy drugs; and leading domestic platforms in stem cell therapy technologies and bispecific antibody development. These investments have yielded excellent returns.