Bio-Data Solutions Provider BioKnow Completes RMB 40 Million Series A Funding to Enhance Informatics Platforms and Expand Healthcare Big Data Initiatives

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned exclusively that Beijing BioKnow Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“BioKnow”) recently completed a RMB 40 million Series A financing round, led by Galaxy Jixing, with Heyue Capital (TalkingData) participating as a co-investor. Probe Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

The funds from BioKnow’s current round of financing will be used to further develop and refine its informatics product line, strengthen team building, expand market reach, and focus on big data analytics in the field of medical research. Among these, the expansion of big data services will be a key priority, including training disease models, leveraging machine learning to address critical challenges in medicine and enhance pharmacovigilance capabilities, as well as facilitating business connectivity between sponsors and principal investigators (PIs).

The investment firm in this round, Galaxy Jixing, is a state-owned sole proprietorship directly under the central government. Its investment projects in the healthcare sector include Changfeng Pharmaceutical, Yuanhe Pharmaceutical, and Huatong Pharmaceutical Equipment. Galaxy Jixing boasts substantial project resource advantages, extensive industry research experience, and an excellent management team. Its core management personnel possess many years of experience in the financial sector, outstanding operational and managerial capabilities, as well as broad social resources and strategic partners.

The co-investment institution in this round is the TalkingData Industrial Fund. TalkingData is a leading third-party data intelligence service provider in China, with medical technology being one of its key investment focuses. As an industry-leading eCRO and medical big data company, BioKnow is dedicated to providing high-quality products and services to the sector. Leveraging its own strengths, TalkingData will continue to support BioKnow’s exploration of AI and medical big data solutions.

Probe Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round of financing. Focusing on the healthcare industry, Probe Capital provides professional investment and advisory services to create enterprise value, growing alongside elite medical companies.

BioKnow is a next-generation informatics-driven CRO company specializing in the life sciences sector. It provides comprehensive coverage across all stages, including preclinical research, clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, and regulatory submissions, while also offering integrated solutions. BioKnow has pioneered the integration of more than ten categories of application technologies within the industry, encompassing data capture, randomization, patient-reported outcomes, data management, medical coding, data reporting, project management, drug safety surveillance, and document management. By building an integrated pharmaceutical research information platform, it achieves full coverage of clinical research processes and extensively leverages mobile internet technologies. Furthermore, based on its BioKnow UAP (Unified Application Platform) technology, all underlying code can be unified, significantly reducing subsequent R&D and operational costs.

Dr. Zhuang Yonglong led the R&D and sales team to establish BioKnow in 2007. Since its inception, from a startup to a current team of over 100 employees, BioKnow has maintained strong financial health and sustained product development and innovation capabilities, a distinction unique within the industry. Headquartered in Beijing, the company has branches in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Changsha, Jilin, and Shandong. With this round of investment, BioKnow will increase its R&D and operational investments, strengthen the development and refinement of its product portfolio, and accelerate the development of new products.

In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies to promote the development and application of medical big data at the national strategic level, such as the “Key Points for On-Site Inspection of Drug Clinical Trial Data.” Following the promulgation of multiple regulations, stringent regulatory and review standards have stimulated supply-side reforms in the pharmaceutical industry, thereby driving demand for novel CRO services. The best example is BioKnow, whose contract value has doubled annually in recent years.

Meanwhile, real-world studies (RWS) are increasingly drawing the attention of global pharmaceutical companies. Data from RWS originate from real-world clinical settings, reflecting actual diagnostic and treatment processes as well as patients’ health status under real-life conditions, thereby facilitating drug repurposing, timely management of adverse effects, and the advancement of personalized diagnosis and therapy. Drug repurposing has become a primary R&D focus for pharmaceutical enterprises due to its advantages of low cost and high efficacy. Clinical information systems have demonstrated significant effectiveness in accelerating drug development efficiency.

As pharmaceutical companies continue to increase their R&D investments and CROs adopt more specialized and segmented divisions of labor, traditional pain points have become increasingly prominent. These include issues such as data inaccuracy and document loss, stemming from the multi-party nature of clinical trials, diverse data sources, frequent personnel turnover, and low levels of information sharing. Consequently, there is a widespread industry demand for improved management of all stages of drug development, better control over factors affecting data quality, and assurance that clinical trial data remains controllable and reliable. In this context, the eCRO concept—characterized by informatization, modularization, and refined R&D management—has garnered significant attention.

As China’s first integrated pharmaceutical research information platform with independent intellectual property rights, BioKnow is backed by an exceptional team of researchers and marketing professionals. Its core members possess interdisciplinary expertise in software development, data mining, and bioinformatics.

Dr. Zhuang Yonglong, Founder and CEO of BioKnow, earned his doctorate from Tsinghua University under the supervision of Academician Li Yanda. He previously served as the project leader for the “Standardization of Molecular Disease Subtyping and Software Development” initiative under the National 11th Five-Year Plan’s Information Technology Special Program, bringing extensive experience in the informatization industry. Under his leadership, the team has secured 58 software patents covering various aspects of pharmaceutical research informatization. Dr. Zhuang has published more than 20 papers in the field of bioinformatics, including five SCI-indexed articles. He has been a principal investigator or key participant in major national projects, including those under the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans, the National High-Tech Research and Development Program (863 Program), the National Basic Research Program (973 Program), and key projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Ministry of Science and Technology. With abundant resources spanning industry, academia, and government, he maintains close ties and collaborations with CFDA statistical experts, the CFDA Training Institute, industry associations, and renowned principal investigators (PIs).

Vice President Liu Guangyu has nearly 20 years of experience in software development and over 10 years of team management experience. He is primarily responsible for the company’s software development and continuous improvement, with a commitment to building a universal information management and analytics platform.

In terms of marketing, He Hao, Vice President of Business Development, brings 16 years of experience in software sales and marketing within the life sciences and healthcare industries. He has previously served as the head of marketing and sales for the life sciences divisions at multinational corporations such as Oracle and Veeva.

Professionalism and efficiency are the hallmarks of BioKnow’s products and services. Its product portfolio is primarily categorized into four areas: Clinical Data Management, Pharmacovigilance Management, Regulatory Submission Management, and Clinical Project Management. The company’s 25 system modules can be combined in various ways to meet the needs of every stage in the R&D process.

Taking the Electronic Data Capture (EDC) system as an example, this platform serves hospitals, patients, trial sponsors, and data analysis entities involved in clinical drug trials. Participants can conveniently perform data capture and interface interactions via web, tablet, and mobile interfaces. System security is ensured through electronic signatures and audit trails, while supporting multiple data quality verification protocols. The collected data and processing methods comply with the U.S. FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 requirements and China’s Good Clinical Practice (GCP) regulations, enabling efficient and accurate online statistical analysis and the generation of standardized reports. This electronic data collection system undoubtedly accelerates trial progress and significantly reduces costs.

BioKnow has established strategic partnerships with numerous renowned pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, CROs, and hospitals in China. The BioKnow product suite, refined through extensive deliberation and polishing, has become the preferred choice for many organizations. Furthermore, BioKnow will expand into the international market, following the globalization trajectory of these Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises.