Genskey Files IPO Prospectus: Dr. Zhi Jiang Highlights NGS-Based Pathogen Detection as a Strategic Long-Term Vision

Dr. Jiang Zhi, a brilliant and beautiful scholar, jokingly refers to herself as a lucky person. She notes that not everyone has the opportunity to enter the field just as a disruptive technology is emerging, yet she happened to engage with next-generation sequencing (NGS) at precisely the right time.

Two months ago, VCBeat broke the news of GensKey’s Series A financing round, igniting enthusiasm among investors and the industry for the NGS-based pathogen detection sector in which the company specializes. Last week, we reconnected with Dr. Jiang Zhi, CEO of GensKey, to discuss the advancements in next-generation sequencing (NGS) over the past decade.

Dr. Jiang Zhi, photo provided by the interviewee

In 2009, after earning his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Peking University, Dr. Jiang Zhi moved south to Shenzhen and joined BGI, embarking on an enduring journey with next-generation sequencing (NGS).

At that time, next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology was just emerging. Although Illumina’s sequencers had already entered the research arena, Sanger sequencing remained the mainstream sequencing technology in the life sciences field. However, Sanger sequencing suffered from low throughput, capable of analyzing only one gene at a time, and involved cumbersome operational procedures. NGS represented a revolutionary technology, with its most significant advantage over Sanger sequencing being a substantial increase in throughput, enabling the simultaneous sequencing of all more than 20,000 human genes. Nevertheless, the high cost of NGS at that time made it affordable for only a few laboratories.

During his tenure at BGI, Dr. Jiang Zhi began to engage comprehensively and in-depth with NGS, a disruptive technology in the field of life sciences. However, any technology inevitably follows a developmental path from research applications to medical and health care. Dr. Jiang Zhi firmly believes that NGS will have broad application prospects.

Her primary responsibilities included the design and implementation of genomics projects. After systematically studying next-generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatics analysis, she participated in more than 10 de novo sequencing, resequencing, and epigenomics projects. Her research contributions, including those on the giant panda and cucumber genomes, were published in prestigious international journals such as Nature, exerting significant influence within the industry.

Joining BGI Genomics marked the beginning of Dr. Jiang Zhi’s comprehensive engagement with next-generation sequencing (NGS), allowing him to gain an in-depth understanding of its application potential in scientific research and clinical medicine. During this period, Dr. Jiang completed a professional transition from a frontline product manager to the head of a product line leading a team of dozens within just three months, laying the foundation for his future entrepreneurial career as a versatile talent.

In March 2011, Jiang Zhi left BGI and returned to Beijing to co-found Novogene, embarking on his first entrepreneurial venture. The company focused on providing next-generation sequencing (NGS) services for the scientific research sector. In the wake of the transformative impact of NGS technology on the life sciences, gene research continued to flourish, generating substantial demand for NGS and bioinformatics analysis. Novogene’s rise was precisely driven by its ability to capitalize on this surge in application-driven demand.

Starting a business is arduous. Before the company’s operations were fully up and running, Dr. Jiang Zhi, as a co-founder, had to navigate every stage from building departments to constructing the business system. During the day, she led three sales colleagues in extensive market outreach. In the evenings, the company’s dozen or so employees would consolidate the day’s achievements and formulate action plans for the following day.

Scientific research serves as the vanguard of technological innovation. While researchers demonstrate strong receptivity to new technologies, not every laboratory possesses the capability to independently acquire high-throughput genomic data, thereby creating market opportunities for specialized NGS research service providers such as Novogene. Four years after its establishment, Novogene surpassed BGI Genomics in the next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology services market, becoming the leading supplier with the largest market share in China.

Since 2015, Novogene has extended its reach overseas to expand into international markets, establishing subsidiaries and laboratory bases in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and other regions to provide sequencing services to customers in Europe, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific.

Meanwhile, Novogene quietly began exploring tumor gene sequencing. At that time, the non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) market had already entered a phase of intense red-ocean competition. Dr. Jiang Zhi decisively chose tumor genetic testing, which featured higher technical barriers and had not yet reached its market explosion period, as Novogene’s product direction for entering medical diagnostics. “Rather than chasing others, it is better to pioneer new frontiers.” Whenever discussing product strategy, Dr. Jiang Zhi’s tone invariably revealed his determination. Furthermore, the strong correlation between tumorigenesis, progression, and genetic mutations fully established the technical feasibility of tumor genetic testing.

As Dr. Jiang Zhi had anticipated, the introduction of NGS technology from research services into medical diagnostics was initially met with market skepticism. In 2014, NGS was a largely unfamiliar technology for oncologists and patients, and the high-throughput gene sequencing tests often incurred costs reaching tens of thousands of yuan, posing significant barriers to product commercialization.

“When serving the scientific research sector, the market cultivation phase was directly bypassed because researchers in niche fields had a high level of acceptance for the technology itself; however, the clinical market helped us make up for this gap.” In the following years, Dr. Jiang Zhi began to devote significant effort to industry conferences and training programs. As doctors and patients gradually adapted to incorporating next-generation sequencing (NGS) into the diagnostic workflow for tumor medication, NGS has become an established tool in oncology diagnosis and treatment.

Distinct characteristics of market segments call for tailored product marketing strategies. Rather than attempting to reverse the ingrained tendency of Novogene’s marketing team to pioneer in the scientific research services sector, Dr. Jiang Zhi established a new team with extensive experience in medical sales. By fully respecting the marketing logic specific to each segment, this team rapidly broke into an entirely unfamiliar market. Over two years, she led the team in providing oncology pharmacogenomic testing services to physicians at more than 100 large hospitals across China, assisting them in selecting appropriate targeted therapies, assessing the toxic side effects of chemotherapy drugs, and formulating optimal treatment plans.

After entering the oncology genetic testing market, Dr. Jiang Zhi’s workload doubled, accompanied by a restructuring of the product architecture.

One aspect is stability. Medical testing faces a larger user base and stricter cost-effectiveness requirements. Dr. Jiang Zhi needs to lead his team in developing a comprehensive, scalable experimental methodology and repeatedly validating its reliability, thereby ensuring product reproducibility and reducing manufacturing costs through economies of scale.

On the other hand, there is regulatory compliance; medical diagnostic products can only enter the market on a large scale after obtaining specific qualifications. After product design is completed, they must still undergo complex procedures such as review, clinical trials, and regulatory certification.

“While many practitioners are clear about the iterative directions for the application of genetic testing, the process of implementing these ideas is tedious and challenging, and not everyone is willing to go all out to try.” Novogene has developed six kits for targeted gene therapy in lung cancer, which were approved by the National Medical Products Administration in August 2018 and officially authorized for market sale, becoming one of the first domestic products of this kind to obtain relevant qualifications.

The success of Novogene has validated Dr. Jiang Zhi’s early assessment of the potential of NGS applications, while its unexpectedly rapid development has prompted her to explore a broader range of potential application scenarios.

In 2018, Dr. Jiang Zhi left Novogene. By that time, Novogene had grown into a first-tier genetic testing company with over 1,800 employees and an annual sequencing throughput equivalent to 280,000 whole human genomes, making it the largest sequencing service center globally. While Novogene provided Dr. Jiang with a highlight of his career, it contributed even more significantly to the development of his professional capabilities.

At the end of 2018, she joined GensKey, then a startup, as CEO, embarking on her second entrepreneurial venture. This time, Dr. Jiang Zhi maintained a clear product strategy: clinical diagnosis requires genetic data, and the application scenarios for next-generation sequencing (NGS) extend far beyond non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and tumor genetic testing. After evaluating multiple NGS application scenarios, GensKey selected NGS-based pathogenic microorganism detection as its core business direction.

Switching tracks posed significant challenges for Dr. Jiang Zhi, but his eight years of experience at Novogene equipped him with the skills to navigate them effectively.

Although both fall under NGS applications, pathogenic microorganism genetic testing and tumor genetic testing are two entirely distinct endeavors. Tumor genetic testing merely requires quantitative reporting of mutations identified during gene sequencing, whereas pathogenic microorganism genetic testing necessitates more subjective judgments integrated with clinical experience. “Results from pathogenic microorganism genetic testing may vary significantly across different institutions.”

First is the construction of the database. Building upon public databases formed from accumulated open research, GensKey extracts data on pathogenic microorganisms that meet the needs of clinical diagnosis. In addition, through providing clinical monitoring services, GensKey has gradually accumulated its own data, forming an ever-expanding database. Dr. Jiang Zhi believes that database construction is a critically important task.

Next is the diversification of samples. There are hundreds of sample types for pathogenic microorganism testing, with more than ten major types, including cerebrospinal fluid, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, blood, sputum, and pleural and ascitic fluids. In contrast, tumor testing primarily involves two types of specimens. Although a single patient typically requires only one sample to be extracted—for example, selecting the infection site based on the patient’s clinical symptoms—GensKey’s task is to design a comprehensive set of experimental methods to enable the extraction of multiple sample types. Furthermore, significant R&D efforts are involved in processes such as fungal enrichment, RNA extraction, and host depletion.

GensKey’s pathogenic microorganism detection product, Jinshiyuan, enables the detection of pathogens in various human samples. In clinical practice, physicians collect appropriate sample types from patients to ensure that laboratory testing yields more sensitive and stable results. Jinshiyuan can be selected when patients with encephalitis, pneumonia, or advanced-stage tumors develop symptoms such as fever and diarrhea due to infection, but a definitive diagnosis of infection cannot be established. The collected samples are tested directly without the need for culture or specific amplification, thereby confirming suspected diagnoses or providing new diagnostic insights.

Dr. Jiang Zhi told VCBeat New Medicine that GensKey covers 13,238 types of pathogenic microorganisms with known gene sequences, increasing the positive detection rate by 25%–30% compared to traditional methods, making it suitable for detecting fastidious bacteria and viruses.

Meanwhile, GensKey has partnered with hospitals in multiple regions across China, including Beijing and Tianjin. Patients can receive their test results within one to two days after sample collection at these affiliated hospitals. GensKey has established a medical laboratory in Tianjin and is currently preparing to set up facilities in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

According to Dr. Jiang Zhi, GensKey is launching a new round of financing, with the funds planned to be used for building a nationwide delivery network and promoting the marketing of its Jinshiyuan products.