Jia Ling is on fire, and the medicine is also going to IPO.
The investment community - Tiantian IPO learned that Paige Biopharma (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. *** referred to as "Paige Bio") officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to be listed on the main board.
Although it focuses on chronic diseases, one of the impressions left by Paige Biotech is that it is a drug. In the 16 years since its establishment, Paige Biotech has raised more than 1.3 billion yuan, and has gathered a number of VC PEs behind it: Legend Capital, Oriza Holdings, Kaifeng Venture Capital, Legend Star, Yunfeng**, Yingke Capital, Tigermed, Tasly, Qianhai Mu**, and Yicun Capital. The prospectus disclosed that the post-investment valuation was 4 billion yuan last year.
At the moment, the ** medicine is hot. I still remember a tweet from Musk last year, and the "hottest drug" semaglutide quickly became popular. Relying on the best medicine, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly lined up to create a market value myth, and domestic pharmaceutical companies flocked to ......As you can see, ** medicine is creating a superstorm around the world.
Dr. returnee in Suzhou
** Drugs will prop up an IPO
It all starts with Xu Min, who is at the helm.
Born in a family of doctors, Xu Min graduated from Xiangya Medical College in 1986 and stayed in the affiliated hospital. Later, he went to the United States for further study, and studied for a Ph.D. in biophysics at Columbia University and engaged in postdoctoral research, focusing on protein structure research.
During her Ph.D., Min Xu took an MBA program and was exposed to the VC field for the first time. After returning to China in 1997, he joined Transpac as the Chief Representative of the Shanghai Representative Office, responsible for venture capital and project incubation in the pharmaceutical industry. At that time, Xu Min almost looked at the first generation of companies in the field of biotechnology in China, and successively launched a number of projects.
It is this composite experience of "doctor + scientific research + investment" that laid the groundwork for Xu Min's future entrepreneurship.
In 2008, Xu Min officially established Paige Biotech in Suzhou, focusing on the field of metabolic disorders, and its products cover diabetes, obesity, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and other diseases.
The reason why he focuses on the field of chronic diseases is that in addition to cancer, there is also a huge demand for unmet innovative drugs in China, such as metabolic diseases and immune chronic diseases.
Medicine is not only the hope of patients, but also the life of enterprises. Up to now, Paige Biotech has a total of 6 drugs under development, of which 4 pipelines are related to GLP-1 drugs, and the indications are almost all for obesity, overweight, diabetes and other fields.
Among them, the core product PB-119 (vepanamide injection) is a long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist, which is being developed for first-line T2DM and obesity**. At present, the State Food and Drug Administration has accepted the new drug application for this product, which is also the closest drug to commercialization under Paige Biotech.
In fact, Xu Min has led the company to seek listing several times: in 2021, Paige Biotech submitted an IPO application to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, during which the materials were withdrawn after two rounds of inquiries. In December 2022, Paige Biotech launched an A-share IPO again.
This time, Paige Biotech switched to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Riding the east wind of ** medicine, 60-year-old Xu Min is about to usher in the first IPO in his life.
9 rounds of financing, with a valuation of 4 billion
VC PE gathered
Like most innovative pharmaceutical companies, Paige Biotech has not yet launched a product on the market. According to the prospectus, in 2022 and the first nine months of 2023, the R&D expenditure of Paige Biotech will be about 2800 million yuan, 19.3 billion yuan. In 2022 and the first nine months of 2023, Paige Biotech's net loss was 3., respectively0.6 billion yuan, 22.5 billion yuan.
This is inseparable from the strong support of investors. Since its establishment, Paige Biotech has publicly raised at least 9 rounds of prospectuses, showing that its shareholders include Legend Capital, Oriza Holdings, Kaifeng Venture Capital, Lenovo Star, Yunfeng**, Yingke Capital and other institutions, as well as Tigermed, Tasly and other industrial parties.
The story of financing is quite old. After a roadshow in the early years, Xu Min received a series of financing of $1.8 million from Dr. Xu Lixin, who grew up in Mingli China.
And Lenovo Star's first shot at Paige Biotech can be traced back to 2011. At that time, Legend Star, Mingli China Growth**, Xieli Investment, Oriza Holdings, etc., participated in the $3.5 million Series B financing of Paige Biotech. Paige Biotech is also the first new drug company and the first follow-up project invested by Legend Star.
Impetuous people can't do new drugs well. The partner of Lenovo Star once commented, "The founder Xu Min has a very clear business sense, a clear market competition and the future market positioning of the drug. This is not something that everyone who does new drug research and development has in mind. ”
In the years that followed, Paige Biotech's financing process accelerated. According to the prospectus, the C round of financing took place in 2014, and Lenovo Star, Yuansheng Venture Capital and Legend Capital jointly invested $7.5 million. In the following year's D round of financing, Legend Capital, Kaifeng Venture Capital and Yuansheng Venture Capital continued to invest, and Zhongyi Mingyuan, Shihezi Xinyue, Wuhu Zhongchuang and Hong Kong Jincheng and other institutions entered the market.
The industry side also came, and the 2017 Series E financing of $21 million was led by Tasly. Two years later, Tigermed participated in the E1 round of overseas financing, and the E1 round of domestic financing was jointly completed by Pacific Century Capital and Yipu Capital. At that time, Paige Biotech signed an agreement with Tasly to promote the commercialization of the related products.
The largest financing came in 2020, when Paige Biotech completed a financing of nearly 800 million yuan, led by Yunfeng**, Yingke Capital and Taifu Capital, and followed by Qianhai Mu**, Yuansheng Venture Capital, Zhongxin Capital and Yuanfeng Capital. According to the prospectus, the last round of financing of Paige Biotech took place in June 2023, with a post-investment valuation of RMB 4 billion.
Talking about the investment logic, Qian Mingfei, chairman of Pacific Century Capital, once said that the R&D team of Paige Biotech continues to focus on the research and development of core products, and has formed a unique competitive advantage in the field of new drug research and development for chronic diseases. Dr. Huang Xiao, Executive Director of Yunfeng**, also said that the market for chronic metabolic and digestive diseases is huge, and the clinical benefits of Chinese patients are much lower than those in Europe and the United States, and there is huge potential for development.
**The medicine is on fire
Set off a wave of wealth
coincided with the explosion of the first drug, which made the IPO of Paige Biotech attract more attention.
*Medicine has both medical and consumer attributes, and no one wants to miss it. Investors who witnessed this scene said frankly. Since last year, semaglutide has jumped from a hypoglycemic drug to an Internet celebrity ** drug, and a trend of GLP-1 drugs has been surging around the world.
Coincidentally, Jiuyuan Gene, which developed semaglutide analogue, also submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Looking at the primary market, pharmaceutical companies that have developed GLP-1 drugs and upstream and downstream products such as Peptide Biotechnology and Taihe Weiye have completed financing, and a number of investors such as Sequoia China, Hillhouse, Qiming Venture Capital, Lanchi Venture Capital, Legend Star, and CMB International have made moves.
As you can see, ** medicine is making history.
The most typical example is Eli Lilly. I still remember that Eli Lilly released its latest financial report a few years ago, announcing that it will receive about 341 revenue in 2023200 million US dollars, of which the total revenue of GLP-1 analogues alone reached 12.5 billion US dollars, detonating the ** drug market in one fell swoop. Within a week, Eli Lilly's stock price soared by more than 100%, and its market value soared all the way to more than $700 billion, becoming the most expensive pharmaceutical company on the surface.
At this time, it has only been 8 months since Eli Lilly reached a market value of $400 billion, which can be described as the most vigorous case of pharmaceutical wealth in history. Previously, Morgan Stanley**, Eli Lilly will be the first pharmaceutical company with a market value of more than one trillion US dollars, and ** medicine has made great contributions.
On the other hand, Novo Nordisk from Denmark is also fierce, with the "hottest drug" semaglutide soaring in value last year, and its market value jumped to 551 billion US dollars, which can be called a rich country.
Not long ago, Novo Nordisk announced its latest financial report, announcing that its sales in 2023 reached 337200 million US dollars, of which only three classes of semaglutide drugs sold about 21 billion US dollars, accounting for 60% of sales, making a lot of money.
There's a joke on the internet: "Is semaglutide only selling these?" No, only these semaglutide are available for sale. "It's unimaginable that ** medicine has propped up two giants.
We pulled our attention back to China, and the Spring Festival holiday also ushered in a wave of ** craze: with the release of Jia Ling's movie "Hot and Hot", the public's **enthusiasm was ignited, and **Jingdong, Douyin and other platforms ** drug sales are on the rise. Even some ** people posted on social platforms, "The first gift of the new year, give yourself an injection of semaglutide." “
It's a huge market. Morgan Stanley estimates that the global market for ** drugs is expected to exceed $54 billion by 2030. JPMorgan Chase & Co. also said that China's drug market is expected to reach $14.9 billion by 2030. Behind this, China has seen an overweight or obesity rate of more than 50%, becoming the country with the most overweight and obese people.
Witnessing Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk getting rich, ** medicine is becoming a "battleground" for domestic pharmaceutical companies. East China Biologics, Hengrui Pharmaceutical, Innovent Biologics, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Salubris ......At present, at least dozens of domestic pharmaceutical companies are deploying first-class drugs, and the total number of GLP-1 drug projects has exceeded 700.
At present, a large number of products are in clinical research nodes, and the future will inevitably usher in a period of cashing outbreak. An industry insider said that there are still 3 to 5 years before the first phase of GLP-1 drugs, "especially now that the world is facing a shortage of downstream production capacity and shortages, and the domestic peptide raw material manufacturers located in the upstream of the GLP-1 industry chain have a great advantage." ”
Of course, safety risks are also in front of us, taking semaglutide as an example, some people will have nausea, vomiting, severe regurgitation, etc. due to gastrointestinal stimulation after injection, which also sounded the alarm for domestic pharmaceutical companies.
Even so, the feast has slowly begun.