On April 15, Chengdu Hyperway Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hyperway"), a new biomedical company focusing on innovative drug R&D, recently completed a Round A financing of tens of millions of RMB.

 

       This round of financing was jointly led by Huaige Capital and Sichuan Academician Science and Technology Innovation Fund (hereinafter referred to as "Sichuan Academician Fund") under Sichuan Development Hongke Equity Investment Co., Ltd. This round of financing will be used for the research and development of several Class I new drug projects of the company and the promotion of four IND application projects to be completed in the coming two years.

 

       Dr. Du Jiangbo, partner of Huaige Capital, said: As an old shareholder of Pre-A Round, Hyperway was invested and support supported again in this round because of its team's strong execution, go-all-out corporate culture and good development prospects of projects under research. Huaige Capital will make use of its own characteristics of "VC investment" and "IPO investment bank" to help the the company formulate a reasonable capital market path, solve related problems in the IPO process in time, and promote Hyperway to enter the capital market more quickly and smoothly.

 

 

       Up to now, Hyperway has completed three rounds of financing, with a total financing of more than RMB 100 million. Hyperway was founded in 2019. In just two years after its establishment, the company has made achievements including four Class 1.1 new drug PCCs, one preparation improvement new drug, six APIs/intermediates, three technology transfers, two cooperation agreements and more than 10 patent applications, which could not be separated from Hyperway's development model, team ability and capital support.

 

 

       Hyperway is a new pharmaceutical company with the goal of leading concept, leading strategy and leading technology. The core members of the company's team have rich experience in international and domestic drug R&D and management. They have successively developed multiple Class-I innovative drugs and multiple of highly difficult high-end generic drugs, and have obtained dozens of generic drug production approvals.

 

 

       Dr. Li Yingfu, the founder, has more than 20 years of working experience in famous pharmaceutical companies at home and abroad. He once served as senior scientist and project director in Bayer German Headquarters R&D Center, Bayer Japan R&D Center and Bayer American R&D Center, chief scientific officer of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical, general manager of Chengdu ChemPartner and president of Brilliant Pharmaceuticals Research Institute. The new drug R&D areas that Dr. Li was engaged in during this period include: anti-tumor drugs, anti-infection drugs, drugs for respiratory diseases and drugs for urinary diseases.

 

       Dr. Li said that Hyperway has a young team, with several core members aged between 30 and 40 who has high learning and innovation ability, full of enterprising and striving spirit. These colleagues of Dr. Li have been working with him since he took office in Chengdu ChemPartner. Ten years of running-in makes the team members cooperate with each other at the early stage of the Hyperway's establishment, with high efficiency. In addition, the members of Hyperway's management team and core team have working experience in well-known pharmaceutical enterprises at home and abroad.

 

 

       In addition to a young and innovative team, the company also has a development model of pharmaceutical companies that are relatively nichey in China. Relying on its three R&D platforms, Hyperway is determined to become a world-class modern comprehensive pharmaceutical enterprise integrating R&D, production and sales of innovative drugs, high-end preparations, APIs, API fragments, etc.

 

Dr. Li Yingfu and R&D Personnel

 

       Different from other pharmaceutical enterprises, Hyperway is not a research and development platform purely for innovative drugs. Instead, it takes the road of parallel research and development and market, and finally implements the road of core products with its own scientific research technology. Admittedly, innovative drug R&D is a process that requires long-term investment of technology and capital, but the company has certain hematopoietic capacity while obtaining financing.

 

       Hyperway's technical team has developed multiple world-leading green, environment-friendly and cost-effective high-end pharmaceutical intermediates. Its products have been exported to the United States, Europe, Japan, Israel, India and other important international markets, and it is expected to bring hundreds of millions of sales revenue and tens of millions of profits in the next few years for Hyperway.

 

       Judging from the current development of China's Science and Technology Innovation Board, an enterprise needs not only the ability to innovate, but also the ability to continuously create value, otherwise it will eventually be eliminated by the market.

 

       According to Hyperway, as a new pharmaceutical startup company, it has not only a high level of innovative drug R&D capability, but also the income benefits brought by high-end APIs. The combination of the two will continue to bring positive feedback to promote the rapid development of the company.

 

       Dr. Li said, "This is a combination mode rare in China, but it is precisely because there are not many, I think we have a great opportunity to become a world-class innovative pharmaceutical enterprise with its own core products."

 

 

       In terms of innovation and R&D, several research projects of Hyperway are in the stage of rapid advancement, which mainly focus on the fields of tumor drug resistance, brain tumors and tumor brain metastasis, central nervous system diseases and so on. Among them, HBW-3-10, one of its core products, is a real second-generation BTK inhibitor, which can overcome the serious drug resistance of the first-generation BTK inhibitor represented by Ibutinib. This product will complete the IND application this year.

 

       Speaking of BTK, its small-molecule inhibitor has good specificity, and it shows great advantages in the treatment of B-cell malignant tumors and some B-cell immune diseases. For this reason, BTK inhibitor has become the drug with the best market prospect for hematoma and a hot target for the treatment of hematological malignancies and autoimmune disorders.

 

Hyperway's Innovative Drug R&D Pipeline

 

       According to statistics, there are 75,300 cases of leukemia in China every year, and the 5-year survival rate of patients is only 24.8%, so safer and more effective innovative drugs are urgently needed. For the moment, primary brain tumor and tumor brain metastasis are the biggest challenges for anti-tumor treatment. The existence of blood-brain barrier makes the brain entry rate of most anti-tumor drugs very low and unable to reach the therapeutic concentration. Therefore, there is a huge and urgent demand for anti-tumor drugs that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier.

 

       HBW-3-20 is the first reported reversible and drug-resistant second-generation BTK inhibitor in the world, which can significantly penetrate the blood-brain barrier. In the preclinical head-to-head comparison of brain lymphoma animal model test, the tumor inhibition effect of HBW-3-20 is significantly better than that of Tirabrutinib, the first and only first-generation BTK inhibitor developed by Ono Pharmaceutical in the world that can penetrate the brain and be used for central nervous lymphoma.

 

       HBW-3-20 can be used not only for the treatment of primary central nervous system lymphoma and brain metastasis of lymphoma, but also for the treatment of autoimmune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis) and central nervous system related diseases. It is of great development value. According to relevant regulations, HBW-3-20 can be developed as per the fast channel of orphan drugs, so that it can be used in clinic more quickly.

 

       In view of Hyperway's rich experience in BTK inhibitor development and excellent preclinical data, multiple leading pharmaceutical companies have expressed strong willingness to jointly develop the second-generation BTK inhibitors with Hyperway.

 

 

       So far, Lilly's LOXO-305 and MSD's ARQ-531 are the only two second-generation drug-resistant BTK inhibitors entering the clinical stage. In the preclinical head-to-head comparison test, HBW-3-10 has greatly surpasses MSD's ARQ-531, which, purchased at a cost of more than USD 2 billion,  has just entered the second phase of clinical trials, in many aspects such as in vivo and in vitro activity, pharmacokinetics and toxicology. HBW-3-10 has a great opportunity to become the second-generation drug-resistant BTK inhibitor of Best-in-class. In addition, Hyperway is also expected to complete four IND applications by the end of next year.

 

Dr. Li Yingfu and R&D Personnel

 

       In the coming June, Hyperway's two articles related to anti-tumor projects will be published at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), one of the most important annual meetings in the field of oncology in the world. This marks the steady progress of Hyperway towards the goal of internationalization.

 

       In the future, Hyperway will continue to learn from and keep pace with world-class pharmaceutical enterprises to gradually head for internationalization. The company will always adhere to the principles of concept leading, strategy leading and technology leading, make more good medicines with "super quality and competitive price" for mankind, and become an innovative pharmaceutical enterprise recognized by international peers.

 

 

       More Information

       About Huaige Capital

 

       Huaige Capital is a private equity investment fund focusing on the massive health industry based on the "VC Investment"+"IPO Investment Bank" investment strategy. The management team has rich background in the medical and health industry and equity investment experience.

 

       The projects invested by Huaige Capital include: KDL Medical (1501.HK) [interventional medical devices], Cofoe Medical [household medical devices], BESTUDY [clinical CRO], LeadsBiolabs [new drug R&D], Leto Laboratories [new drug R&D], Zhongyianke [vaccine R&D], Resproly [inhalation preparation], Hyperway [new drug R&D] and Gensciences [device CRO], Keythera Pharmaceuticals [new drug R&D], HJ Pharma [new drug R&D], CCRC [Device CRO], Xinnuo Medical [animal experiment center], Ruiyi Tech [Medicine CDMO], Baitewei Medical [interventional medical devices] and many other high-quality enterprises.

 

       About Sichuan Academician Fund

 

       This is a fund initiated and established by Sichuan Development, with an initial scale of RMB 1 billion, which is a thematic fund that accurately serves high-level talents such as academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, aiming to better promote the transformation and landing of high-level scientific and technological innovation achievements in Sichuan. Sichuan Development, a trillion-level local state-owned enterprise rare in Western China and even the whole country, has played an active role in the establishment of the fund.

 

       Next, Sichuan Development will closely contact more academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, prepare customized implementation plans for the transformation and landing of scientific and technological achievements of academicians, and make every effort to build the Academician Fund into a link and platform for academicians to incubate and cultivate scientific and technological achievements.

 

       Sichuan Provincial Party Committee and Sichuan Provincial Government, which have always attached great importance to scientific and technological innovation and talent introduction, take this as an important measure to speed up the construction of a national influential scientific and technological innovation center. Last year, the operating income of the high-tech industries in Sichuan Province exceeded RMB 2 trillion. In addition to the Ten Measures issued last year to support academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering to innovate and start businesses in Sichuan, a series of new measures are steadily advancing.