neoX Biotech Closes $30 million Series A Financing

(VCBeat) Feb. 2, 2021 -- neoX Biotech, a cutting-edge technology company driven by computing design for new drug R&D, announced the closing of a $30 million Series A funding round, co-led by Sky9 Capital and 5Y Capital, with participation from Bertelsmann Asia Investments, Vertex Ventures and existing investors Vision Plus Capital and Sequoia Capital China. This round is the third funding round of neoX Biotech, after its angel in 2018 and Series Pre-A round in 2020.

neoX Biotech will use the funding to accelerate the preclinical development of its innovative pipeline, build its talent team, and expand the international business cooperation.

In the past half a year, neoX Biotech has built the next generation drug R&D platform based on the integration of "AI+ biophysics + high-throughput experiments", and several innovative pipelines derived from this platform have also made great pre-clinical progress, which is expected to become "First-in- class" or "Best-in-class" drugs. 

Based on the underlying logic of biological systems and computable drug action, neoX Biotech uses AI technology for drug R&D. They explore deeply in protein-protein interactions (PPI) and firmly believe that computational design for AI will play an important role in the pharmaceutical industry chain.

In the field of the current popular targeted protein degradation technology --PROTAC, through the in-depth study of PPI, neoX Biotech can accurately predict the "targeted protein -PROTAC- ubiquitin ligase" ternary complex, understand the biophysical principles of protein action and degradation from a different dimension, and design, screen and optimize the candidates more quickly. In terms of biological drugs, Dr. Chen Hang, co-founder and CEO of neoX Biotech, said that neoX Biotech pays more attention to the design and development of nanobodies, polyclonal antibodies and neoantigen-specific T-cell receptors.

According to Chen Hang, neoX Biotech will have several drugs entering the PCC (preclinical compound candidate) stage by the end of this year or early next year. In addition, the company has also reached cooperation with international pharmaceutical enterprises for its pipeline.

Sky9 Capital is a venture capital firm focused on driving innovation in the Internet, enterprise, and deep technology in China. They invest with a systematic, analytical and conviction-based approach, focused on drawing deep market insights and discovering China's top talents. The company has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Silicon Valley.

5Y Capital currently manages approximately USD 3bn in dual-currency funds in USD and RMB, backed by world-renowned sovereign wealth funds, family offices, fund of funds, university endowments, pensions and foundations.