Yijia Health from Peking University Unveils Proprietary 'Drug-Target Space' High-Throughput Screening Platform to Address Long Timelines, High Costs, and High Risks in Drug Discovery
As is well known, drug development is characterized by long cycles, high costs, and significant risks. The industry commonly refers to the “double ten” rule, meaning that each new drug typically requires more than ten years and over $1 billion in investment to successfully reach the market. When accounting for the risk of failure in drug development, bringing a new drug to fruition is akin to a “high-stakes gamble.”
New drug development is broadly divided into four stages: early-stage drug discovery, preclinical research, clinical trials, and regulatory approval and market launch. Is there a method that enables targeted target screening and molecular design starting from the early-stage drug discovery phase, thereby enhancing the efficiency of drug development? If such a model were established, it would undoubtedly have a disruptive impact on the industry.
Yijia Health, a startup spun out of Peking University, is conducting research in this field. The company has pioneered a high-throughput new drug screening model based on the “drug target space,” aiming to address the pain points of long development cycles, high costs, and significant risks in drug R&D. Yijia Health has not only published its research findings in professional journals but is also exploring a business model driven by the dual engines of “R&D + services.”
VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) recently interviewed Chu Ming, CEO of Yijia Health; Zhang Chengrui, CMO; and Li Binghua, COO. They provided a detailed explanation of the technical logic and commercial prospects of Yijia Health’s “Drug Target Space” drug screening model and its anti-smog spray.
The core members of the Yijia Health team are all from Peking University. Chu Ming, the CEO, completed his combined bachelor’s and doctoral studies in the Department of Immunology at Peking University. Professor Wang Yuedan, the Technical Director, serves as Deputy Director of the Department of Immunology and Director of the Laboratory of Pathogen and Immunology Integration at Peking University.
In recent years, immunotherapy has gained immense popularity. They have collaborated with pharmaceutical companies on numerous projects. During these collaborations, it was observed that most pharmaceutical companies still rely on classical approaches for drug screening, such as Ligand-Based Drug Design (LBDD) and Structure-Based Drug Design (SBDD). Many promising drugs and targets that could be identified through these methods have already been discovered by previous researchers.
Coincidentally, the development of a novel drug screening model has long been the focus of Dr. Chu Ming’s scientific research. He recognized that his work holds significant implications for both new drug discovery and drug repurposing. His previous studies have been systematized into the “Drug-Target Space” model, which enables high-throughput screening by analyzing the binding modes between drugs and their targets.
From a technical perspective, academic research has revealed that a single drug can actually act on multiple targets. For instance, sorafenib not only inhibits the receptor tyrosine kinase activities of VEGFR, PDGFR, FLT3, and KIT, but also serves as a potent inhibitor of Raf kinase. Conversely, multiple drugs can act on the same target; for example, both verapamil and nifedipine selectively target Ca2+ channels. These drug-target relationships constitute the theoretical foundation of the drug-target space.
Based on this theoretical framework, they have developed a system for analyzing drug-binding motifs and an algorithm for analyzing target-binding motifs. This algorithm mitigates the false positives and false negatives commonly encountered in new drug screening, while also predicting potential side effects of novel drugs to reduce risks in drug development. They are currently establishing a drug-target relationship database, which significantly enhances the screening efficiency of the algorithm, with preliminary results already achieved.
The most distinctive features of this model are its novelty, precision, and efficiency. Historically, medicinal chemists have been dedicated to identifying new drug design and screening methodologies to enhance the efficiency of new drug development, leading to the emergence of approaches such as high-throughput screening (HTS) and combinatorial chemistry, as well as structure-based drug design (SBDD), ligand-based drug design (LBDD), and fragment-based drug design (FBDD).
By the early 21st century, many companies had built compound libraries containing millions of molecules, from which numerous drug candidates were identified through high-throughput screening (HTS), particularly for well-validated targets. However, HTS has proven unsatisfactory when applied to novel and complex targets, often failing to identify ideal compounds, yielding hits with high false-positive rates, or producing compounds with poor drug-likeness. In contrast, the Drug-Target Space (DTS) model employs an improved Boyer-Moore (BM) algorithm, integrated with its proprietary BM database, to enable highly efficient screening. This approach can identify many compounds and targets that traditional methods miss, and experimental validation has demonstrated a high hit rate.
With strong technology in place, commercialization efforts are equally critical. Professor Chu Zhengyun, father of Chu Ming, brings extensive experience in drug development. He served for many years as the head of a Provincial Institute for Drug Control, participated in new drug reviews for the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), and held the position of Executive Director at a chain pharmacy group for over 30 years. He has joined the Yijia Health team to support its commercial expansion.
CMO Zhang Chengrui and COO Li Binghua both earned their bachelor’s degrees from the Health Science Center of Peking University, and hold master’s degrees in computer science and finance, respectively. They previously served as President of the Peking University Entrepreneurship Association and Chair of the School Student Union, respectively, and had co-founded a brick-and-mortar retail venture prior to establishing MedFinance, a health industry tech media platform, as co-founders in 2017. In 2018, recommended by a highly respected senior alumnus of Peking University Health Science Center, they joined Yijia Health as co-founders, bringing fresh energy to the team.
In the future, Yijia Health will pursue commercialization through a dual-track approach encompassing technical services and drug development.
The global pharmaceutical market is experiencing steady growth, while the Chinese pharmaceutical market is expanding at a faster pace, offering greater development potential. The development of new drugs is commonly plagued by long cycles, low success rates, and high R&D costs, creating an urgent need for novel approaches. Yijia Health provides a new, highly efficient DTS algorithmic model. Its primary advantage lies in its ability to identify numerous compounds and targets that are missed by traditional methods, with experimentally validated high hit rates.
Dr. Chu Ming introduced that “Drug-Target Space” can screen for active compounds and complete efficacy evaluation within 4–8 weeks, significantly shortening the preclinical research cycle. The high efficiency of high-throughput screening substantially reduces capital investment during the efficacy evaluation phase, and the reliable screening results greatly lower the risk of R&D failure when candidate drugs enter clinical trials. Unlike LBDD (Ligand-Based Drug Design) and SBDD (Structure-Based Drug Design), “Drug-Target Space” demonstrates strong capabilities in screening for novel scaffolds as well as compounds with high affinity and high potency, offering a certain degree of innovativeness and independent development capacity.
From the perspective of market competition, Yijia Health has studied a large number of drug screening companies both domestically and internationally, finding that most still employ algorithms biased either toward ligands or toward target structures, whereas their algorithm can simultaneously account for both aspects. Meanwhile, most of these companies are in the early stages (Series A or earlier), with business models that have not yet fully matured. This represents a favorable factor for Yijia Health.
COO Li Binghua stated that, in terms of the “Drug Target Space,” the model has become relatively mature and reached an internationally leading level after continuous debugging and validation. For instance, they recently experimentally validated nine drugs targeting BACE1 identified through systematic screening, finding that six of them exhibited favorable KD and IC50 results—significantly outperforming those obtained via Structure-Based Drug Design (SBDD) and Ligand-Based Drug Design (LBDD) for BACE1 target screening. Meanwhile, in target prediction, using berberine as a case study, they screened and identified 13 novel therapeutic targets; some of these targets have been experimentally validated, with partial experimental results published in international journals such as Frontiers in Pharmacology. Several enterprises and research institutions have also approached them to seek external technical services based on the “Drug Target Space” model.
In terms of financing, Yijia Health is on the verge of closing its angel round, with multiple institutions having expressed interest in investing in its Pre-A round. The company is expected to officially announce the details of its angel financing by the end of this year.
Regarding future development plans, Yijia Health’s strategy is driven by the dual engines of drug screening services and self-developed products. “Drug Target Space” will further enhance its database and initiate the development of an AI system; team building has been partially completed, and operations have commenced. Furthermore, leveraging existing models and databases, the company has already established the capability to provide external services and secured several collaborations. Moving forward, it will accelerate the commercialization of its products.
Regarding original research products, Yijia Health leverages drug target space technology to identify and develop high-quality targets and drug candidates, building a pipeline of proprietary innovations. The company plans to have two to three blockbuster original drugs enter clinical trials by around 2023, with subsequent profitability achieved through either “License-out” partnerships or independent development and commercialization.
It is reported that Yijia Health also operates a “smog-prevention spray” business targeting general consumers. This initiative was launched at an early stage; as early as 2008, Professor Wang Yuedan’s team initiated an international collaborative study on the “Health Impacts of Air Quality Changes Before and After the Olympic Games,” which represents the earliest and most authoritative scientific research in China on the health effects of smog.
In 2013, widespread smog outbreaks across China drew significant public attention, prompting Wang Yuedan’s team to begin exploring safe and effective anti-smog solutions. After a year of rigorous trial and error, the team successfully developed an “Anti-Smog Spray” centered on natural herbal extracts. The technology for this spray has since been licensed to Yijia Health for development and commercialization, giving rise to a new medical skincare brand, “M&C+.”
“M&C+” Anti-Smog Mist delivers active ingredients such as hyaluronic acid into the pores via ultrasonic nebulization, providing pore-tightening, moisturizing, and sun-protective benefits while reducing the skin’s absorption of smog. Additionally, “M&C+” Anti-Smog Mist forms a cationic protective film on the face, which repels positively charged fine particles—such as viruses, bacteria, and smoke dust—around the face through electrostatic repulsion, thereby reducing human inhalation of PM2.5 and protecting the respiratory system.
In 2017, the formulation and preparation method of the “M&C+” anti-smog spray were granted a national invention patent. The product has since been showcased at several major exhibitions in China as a representative scientific achievement of Peking University and is scheduled for market launch by the end of the year. Given that its distribution channels will primarily include medical aesthetics clinics and pharmacies, the subsequent protective product line will expand into disinfection and sterilization products, thereby proactively building commercial capabilities for Yijia Health’s future original research and development products.
CMO Zhang Chengrui stated that the spray is currently in the productization stage. The design has been completed, and prototypes have been showcased at multiple exhibitions, receiving widespread acclaim. The product is scheduled for launch by the end of the year. In terms of marketing, the company is establishing flagship stores on Tmall and JD.com while also collaborating with e-commerce agencies. Regarding offline sales channels, the company will sell directly to medical aesthetics and cosmetics firms on one hand, and on the other, it has already secured procurement orders from major distributors, who will purchase the company’s products in bulk as holiday gifts.
The “M&C+” anti-smog spray product line will pursue a two-pronged strategy going forward. Vertically, it will deepen its offerings by developing additional disinfection and protective products based on positive electric field technology. Horizontally, leveraging the product’s inherent functionalities, it will adopt a B2B model for deployment and sales in public spaces such as hospitals, schools, residential communities, and office buildings.