Predicine Secures Tens of Millions in Pre-A Financing Led by Honghui Capital to Advance Next-Gen Liquid Biopsy Platforms

The buzz from Guardant Health’s substantial financing round last week had barely subsided when another multi-million-dollar funding deal hit the liquid biopsy sector this week.

On May 15, Predicine (Huidu Medical), a pioneer in second-generation liquid biopsy, announced the completion of its Pre-A financing round. The round was led by HighLight Capital, with participation from several international venture capital firms. Following this financing, the company will fully accelerate the clinical application of its proprietary second-generation liquid biopsy technology in drug trials, personalized medicine, and early cancer screening.

Predicine (Huidu Medical), founded in 2015, operates simultaneously in Silicon Valley, USA, and Shanghai, China. It is an international high-tech enterprise specializing in early cancer screening and personalized medicine. Dr. Jia Shidong, Co-founder and CEO of the company, is a renowned scholar in the field of cancer research worldwide. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the international professional academic journal Journal of Circulating Biomarkers. He was the first in the world to discover p110β as a novel therapeutic target for cancer treatment (Nature, 2008), which directly facilitated global clinical trials of p110β inhibitors.

Furthermore, our team members hail from the world’s leading industrial and academic institutions (including Genentech, Roche, Novartis, Illumina, Guardant Health, Harvard, Stanford, BGI, etc.), bringing extensive expertise in liquid biopsy, early cancer screening, clinical drug trials, biomarkers, bioinformatics, and big data.

At the 2016 CSCO Annual Conference, Huidu Medical launched "Gene Radar," the world's first patented technology for combined ctDNA and ctRNA liquid biopsy. This innovation was developed with a focus on prostate cancer, which is the most common type in Europe and the United States and currently exhibits the fastest-growing incidence rate in China. The ctRNA-based liquid biopsy technology effectively addresses drug resistance issues caused by RNA variations in prostate cancer patients, thereby guiding clinical medication and disease management. By simultaneously analyzing trace amounts of cell-free nucleic acids in the blood across both the DNA genome and RNA transcriptome, this approach breaks through the current limitations of liquid biopsy that are restricted to circulating tumor DNA detection, achieving a true "comprehensive tumor liquid biopsy."

Furthermore, Huidu Medical has launched the PrediSeq liquid biopsy solution tailored for drug clinical trials and hospital-based clinical research, successfully enabling non-invasive cancer diagnosis, guidance for targeted therapy, dynamic monitoring of treatment efficacy, and drug resistance analysis. Leveraging its CLIA- and CAP-accredited international standard laboratories in Silicon Valley, USA, and Shanghai, China, the company provides global, one-stop, and comprehensive solutions encompassing precision biomarker diagnostics, bioinformatics, and medical big data analytics using blood and tissue samples.

The company has launched its “Global Solutions for Precision Clinical Trials,” offering a one-stop, comprehensive platform for biomarker testing, bioinformatics, and data interpretation through internationally standardized laboratories in the United States and China, thereby accelerating new drug clinical trials. It has already partnered with multiple international pharmaceutical companies to support multinational, multi-center clinical trials conducted simultaneously across China, the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Liquid biopsy offers numerous advantages over traditional tissue biopsy, including rapidity, convenience, and minimal invasiveness. Clinicians can use it to monitor tumor response to treatment and predict tumor recurrence. In the long term, it can help physicians detect early-stage tumors before patients exhibit any symptoms. Genomic information derived from cell-free DNA fragments in the blood can even indicate the primary site of the tumor.

Early cancer screening: This may be the most significant application of liquid biopsy technology (as currently evident). A surge of startups, including Grail, Freenome, Guardant Health, and Cirina, has entered the field, with these companies securing substantial financing. Prominent investors and institutions such as Illumina, Google Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Founders Fund, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos have also actively invested and established their presence. Despite the absence of commercialized products to date, this sector has attracted a large number of high-caliber entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers, making it difficult to determine whether it constitutes a red ocean or a blue ocean market.

Huidu Biotechnology launched the “Global Liquid Biopsy Consortium” in 2016, aiming to achieve early cancer screening and personalized medicine through global, multi-ethnic, large-population blood biomarker studies.

“Using liquid biopsy for early cancer screening is far more challenging than guiding medication and monitoring disease progression in mid-to-late stage cancers. In this area, Huidu Medical’s bioinformatics team started early and has already accumulated extensive clinical data and experience. The company’s PrediScreen model for early cancer screening, developed through statistical modeling and machine learning based on genomic and clinical big data, has been initially established. We are currently engaging in close collaborations and large-scale clinical validations with leading hospitals both domestically and internationally,” stated Dr. Du Pan, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of the Group, and Dr. Yu Jianjun, Global Head of Translational Medicine.

Honghui Capital, the lead investor in this round, is an investment fund focused on the healthcare industry. It manages dual-currency funds in USD and RMB, with total assets exceeding RMB 4 billion, and has strategic investments in sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and medical devices. Its successful portfolio includes a number of high-quality companies such as Mindray Medical, Yuwell Medical (002223), Linhua Medical (835637), Wentai Orthopedics, Pharmaron, WuXi AppTec, STA Pharmaceutical (832159), Kintor Pharmaceutical (839419), Baiyang Pharma, Jingyi Shares, and Malo Clinic.

Wang Hui, Managing Partner and Founding Partner of Honghui Capital, stated, “Under the leadership of Dr. Jia, a top-tier expert in the industry, Huidu Medical has established a first-class team. Furthermore, its technology has undergone rigorous clinical validation by Honghui’s portfolio companies, such as Kintor Pharmaceutical. This has enabled us to recognize the technological leadership of Huidu Medical and its genuine value in clinical applications.”

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to partner with industry-leading institutions, engaging in international and comprehensive strategic collaborations in clinical trials for new drugs, personalized medicine, and early cancer screening,” stated Dr. Jia Shidong. “Following this round of financing, the company plans to accelerate the promotion of its product portfolio and expand its teams in both China and the United States. We warmly invite professionals passionate about the healthcare industry to join Predicine (Huidu Medical) and work together to build a healthier world.”