XtalPi and Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals Elevate Strategic Collaboration as 'AI-Peptide Delivery Lab' Designated Beijing Key Laboratory

Recently, XtalPi, a leading AI-driven drug discovery company (2228.HK) jointly established with Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), a leader in the field of metabolic diseases,“AI Smart Peptide Delivery Laboratory”(Beijing Key Laboratory of AI-Driven Peptide Drug Design and Delivery System Development),Accredited as a "Beijing Key Laboratory"and officially unveiled. This marks another significant milestone in their collaboration since the establishment of a strategic partnership last November, signifying that the cooperation between the two parties in the field of AI-enabled peptide drug R&D has entered a phase of comprehensive deepening, and alsoCorroboratedXtalPi’s AI Peptide Development Platform PepiX™: Continuous Industrial Translation and Scalable Application Potential。

Academician Ma Guanghui of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences, Academician Andrei K. Yudin of the Royal Society of Canada, Dr. Li Penglai, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of XtalPi, Dr. Gan Zhongru, Founder of Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, and Dr. Chen Wei, Chairman and CEO of Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, among other experts and guests, attended the unveiling ceremony.

Beijing Key Laboratories are a vital component of Beijing’s scientific and technological innovation system, tasked with the strategic mission of aggregating top-tier innovative talent, conducting high-level research, and driving breakthroughs in key technologies. The successful approval of this Key Laboratory marks another authoritative recognition of XtalPi’s capabilities in source innovation and engineering implementation. Leveraging this high-caliber innovation platform, XtalPi will deepen collaboration with its strategic partner, Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, and its research partner, the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to accelerate R&D breakthroughs and clinical translation of next-generation peptide drugs.

Currently, benefiting from the explosive growth of GLP-1 drugs, peptide therapeutics are entering a golden age of development, with R&D directions accelerating towards new forms such as multi-targeting, oral administration, and long-acting formulations. However, challenges such as the susceptibility of peptide molecules to degradation in vivo, low efficiency of targeted delivery, and the long-term overseas monopoly on high-end delivery carriers and core manufacturing processes have constrained the translation of novel peptide drugs in China. To address these challenges, XtalPi and Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, building on their solid existing partnership, have jointly established the “AI Smart Peptide Delivery Laboratory,” focusing primarily on research in the field of metabolic chronic diseases.Dedicated to building a full-chain technology platform encompassing “molecular design–delivery development–clinical translation”, accelerating the research and development and clinical translation of domestically developed novel peptide drugs.

The joint laboratory primarily focuses on three key areas for technological breakthroughs: first, building an AI-driven integrated platform for “virtual screening + wet lab validation” to advance the design and druggability optimization of peptide molecules for treating metabolic chronic diseases; second, developing novel oral delivery systems to enhance the gastrointestinal stability, transmembrane transport efficiency, and bioavailability of peptide drugs; and third, exploring ultra-long-acting delivery and sustained-release formulation technologies to extend dosing intervals.

XtalPi’s Self-Developed AI Peptide Drug Development Platform PepiX™, integrating three core capabilities—precise AI-driven design, high-throughput wet-lab screening, and automated synthesis—to establish an efficient R&D closed loop of “dry-lab design + wet-lab validation,”Compressing the traditional peptide R&D cycle from years to monthsAs a leading enterprise in the field of metabolic diseases in China, Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals boasts profound industrial accumulation and strong clinical translation capabilities. It has established a complete closed-loop capability encompassing “peptide molecular design – delivery system development – translational research for chronic metabolic diseases,” enabling its laboratories to efficiently conduct full-process validation from target discovery to industrialization. The strategic partnership between the two industry leaders is expected to integrate the entire “R&D – clinical development – industrialization” chain, accelerate the clinical translation of safer and more efficient next-generation peptide drugs, and further broaden their respective technological moats within real-world drug development scenarios.

Currently, XtalPi’s PepiX™ platform has achieved technological implementation across multiple therapeutic areas, with a strategic focus on the development of high-potential peptide drugs, including those for brain delivery, ocular delivery, and oral administration, yielding several benchmark achievements. Among these,PepiX™’s food-grade oral functional peptide, Tensotide, has officially received U.S. Self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) certification., and can be legally used in the U.S. food and dietary supplement market. Leveraging the newly approved “AI Smart Peptide Delivery Laboratory,” XtalPi and Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals will further deepen their strategic synergy on the foundation of their previous successful collaboration, jointly building a collaborative innovation ecosystem with deep integration of government, industry, academia, research, and application.Accelerate the translation of original peptide novel drugs from design and R&D to industrialization., driving key breakthroughs for domestically produced innovative peptide drugs in the field of metabolic chronic diseases, and bringing better treatment options to patients worldwide.

Chen Wei, Chairman and CEO of Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, stated:“The laboratory is jointly established by Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals, XtalPi, and the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, leveraging their complementary strengths to create an innovative model that deeply integrates AI-driven problem-solving, basic research, and industrial expansion. This ecosystem integration is essential for China’s biopharmaceutical industry to transition from Fast Follow to First-in-class.”

Lai Lipeng, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of XtalPi, stated:“The designation of the ‘AI Smart Peptide Delivery Laboratory’ as a Beijing Key Laboratory marks a new phase in the strategic partnership between XtalPi and Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals. We look forward to leveraging this laboratory as a platform to fully utilize XtalPi’s end-to-end early-stage R&D technological advantages in AI-driven peptide molecular design, automated synthesis, and high-throughput wet-lab screening, while combining these with Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals’ decades of industrial expertise and outstanding clinical translation capabilities in the field of metabolic peptides. Together, we aim to tackle key industrial challenges in long-acting modification and intelligent delivery, thereby advancing more peptide-based novel drugs with differentiated advantages into clinical development.”

● GuanYuGan&Lee Pharmaceuticals●

GanGan&Lee Pharmaceuticals (abbreviated as: Gan&Lee, stock code: 603087.SH), as China’s first high-tech biopharmaceutical company to master the industrialized production technology of recombinant insulin analogs, possesses a comprehensive insulin R&D pipeline.

In China’s second national centralized volume-based procurement of insulin, Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals ranked first among the selected suppliers in terms of contracted volumes for insulin analogs, further solidifying its domestic market foundation. Meanwhile, the company’s internationalization efforts are steadily advancing: its glargine insulin injection, lispro insulin injection, and aspart insulin injection have all received marketing authorization from the European Commission (EC), marking steady progress toward becoming a core player in the global metabolic disease sector.

Rooted in China and with a global vision, Gan&Lee Pharmaceuticals is committed to providing higher-quality medicines and services to patients worldwide.