Interface News Reporter |
Interface News Editor |Xie Xin
In the past year or two, the small nucleic acid sector in China has been particularly active. Earlier, Bowang Pharmaceuticals and Novartis, as well as Ribo Life Science and Boehringer Ingelheim, reached business development (BD) deals worth up to $4 billion and $2 billion, respectively. More recently, SinoBiopharma, Dara Bio, and Genovate Biotech successively completed large financing rounds. Meanwhile, Sirnaomics, a veteran player in this field, experienced the ousting of its founder and a change in company ownership.
Recently, following the withdrawal of its STAR Market IPO application in 2021, Ribo Life Science filed its prospectus with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, making another attempt at an IPO. The company, founded by Zicai Liang in 2007, is also one of the earliest in China to start developing small nucleic acid drugs.
Ribo Life Science's prospectus shows that before becoming the full-time CEO in 2017, Liang Zicai was a tenured professor at the Institute of Molecular Medicine of Peking University and an associate professor at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. He also led China's first major siRNA (small interfering nucleic acid) research project under the National High Technology Research and Development Program.
According to the prospectus, currently, the concerted action parties including Liang Zicai and Kunshan Ruixing are entitled to exercise approximately 30.84% of the voting rights attached to all issued shares of Ribo Life Science, making them the company's single largest shareholder group.
Before this IPO, Ribo Life Science completed its E2 round of financing in January 2025, with a post-investment valuation reaching a high of 4.87 billion yuan. The investors included prominent capital firms such as Advanced Manufacturing, Sanyi Innovation Investment, Panthera, CICC, and others, as well as the Kunshan State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. However, after a share transfer in February 2025, the company's latest valuation was 3.58 billion yuan.
In terms of financial data, Ribo Life Science has not yet had a product in the commercialization stage. In 2023 and 2024, the company's revenues were 44,000 yuan and 142.6 million yuan, respectively. The 2024 revenue mainly came from a business development deal with Boehringer Ingelheim.
During the same period, the company's R&D expenditures were RMB 315.8 million and RMB 280.4 million, respectively, with net losses of RMB 437.3 million and RMB 281.5 million, respectively. The net asset values were RMB 116 million and -RMB 111 million, respectively, and the end-of-period cash and cash equivalents were RMB 210 million and RMB 168 million, respectively.
It can be seen that during the "cash-burning R&D" phase, Ribo Life Science may face financial pressure to a certain extent, which might also be one of the reasons for the company's IPO in Hong Kong this time.
Unlike small-molecule drugs and biologic antibody drugs, which both target proteins, small nucleic acid drugs, as an emerging therapy, directly act on RNA (ribonucleic acid), which carries human genetic information. This gives them the potential to target previously undruggable targets, along with advantages such as long-lasting efficacy.
Specifically, small nucleic acid drugs can be mainly divided into two categories: ASO (antisense oligonucleotides) and siRNA. Ionis and Alnylam, both listed on Nasdaq, have become the leaders in these two细分 fields respectively凭借 their proprietary technologies.
Among them, since Alnylam's lipid-lowering drug inclisiran was launched in 2020, siRNA drugs have expanded from treatments for rare diseases to common chronic diseases. In addition, one of the key technologies in developing siRNA drugs lies in the delivery system, and one of its future development directions is to expand from targeting the liver to targeting extrahepatic organs, thereby broadening the therapeutic areas.
Ribo Life Science also wants to become a technology platform company, which means continuously developing new pipelines through a mature technology platform.
The prospectus shows that the company is particularly focused on siRNA therapy and currently has three technological platforms: RiboGalSTAR, RiboPepSTAR, and RiboOncoSTAR, which are used for developing liver-targeted (cardiovascular, metabolic, liver diseases) products, products targeting extrahepatic organs and tissues (such as kidneys, central nervous system, etc.), and oncology products, respectively.
It is worth mentioning that, according to the article "Alumnus Liang Zicai Actively Contributes to the Development of China's Small Nucleic Acid Drug Industry" published by the College of Life Sciences at Nankai University, since antisense oligonucleotides can enter some organs that siRNA cannot reach without the need for delivery, Ribo Life Science also ventured into this niche track, planning to complement its siRNA products and cover the entire small nucleic acid field.
In 2017, Ribo Life Science entered into a licensing collaboration with Ionis to acquire the China rights for three assets—SR062, SR063, and SR065—as well as the ssRNAi platform technology. Ionis increased its investment in Ribo Life Science through patent application rights. According to the recent Hong Kong Stock Exchange prospectus, Ionis currently holds 5.87% of Ribo Life Science’s shares.
By the end of 2020, when Suzhou Ribo Life Science Co., Ltd. first attempted to go public on the STAR Market, SR062, SR063, and SR061 (introduced from U.S.-based Quark Pharmaceuticals) were all the products in Phase 2 clinical trials at that time. At that point, the company was also questioned by the Shanghai Stock Exchange on whether its core technologies had significant reliance on the licensor/transferor.
However, according to the recent Hong Kong stock prospectus, the three assets introduced from Ionis are no longer in the pipeline diagram. There are also no antisense oligonucleotide assets in the company’s pipeline.
Currently, the core product of Ribo Life Science is RBD4059. It targets FXI and is the world's first siRNA drug for treating thrombotic diseases, as well as the one with the fastest clinical development progress globally. In February 2025, the phase 2a clinical trial of this drug has completed patient enrollment, and the trial is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
In addition, the company has two key products, RBD5044 and RBD1016, both of which are in Phase 2 clinical trials. The former targets APOC3 for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia, while the latter targets HBV-X for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and chronic hepatitis D.
At the same time, Ribo Life Science has also developed RBD7022, which targets PCSK9. This drug is indicated for hypercholesterolemia. In the field of dyslipidemia, it can serve as a monotherapy with complementary mechanisms to RBD5044 and also has potential for combination use. At the end of 2023, the rights to this drug in China were granted to Qilu Pharmaceutical, a long-established pharmaceutical company in China. Currently, the drug is in Phase 2 clinical trials.
During the same period, Ribo Life Science's collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim focuses on MASH (Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatohepatitis). The latter will use the company’s RiboGalSTAR technology to develop two products, SR111 and SR112.
The prospectus states that RiboGalSTAR has also become the first and only RNAi (RNA interference therapy) technology platform developed by a Chinese company and already out-licensed to multinational pharmaceutical companies. In January 2025, the collaboration achieved its first preclinical milestone.
As of the end of March 2025, seven siRNA drugs have been approved worldwide, none of which are produced in China. It remains to be seen whether Ribo Life Science will be the first to break through.