GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that separated into two distinct firms and separate brands as of March 29, 2024. The Asia partnership, Granite Asia, is headquartered in Singapore and invests in the APAC region, including Southeast Asia, Japan, China, India, and Australia. The U.S. partnership, Notable Capital, is based in Silicon Valley with offices in San Francisco and New York, and invests in the U.S., Israel, Europe, and Latin America.

GGV Capital

Mitsui & Co is a general trading company. Mitsui & Co's business area covers energy, machinery, chemicals, food, textile, logistics, finance, and more.  They will contribute to address diverse industrial needs, through procurement, supply and sales of iron and steel products and investment to processing and distribution businesses in Japan and abroad.  Through business development, investment and trading of mineral, metal resources and metals, they reinforce a stable supply of the resources and materials necessary for both industry and society. They are also active in metal recycling and other initiatives to develop industrial solutions to environmental issues.  They contribute to creating better lives through the long-term, reliable supply of social infrastructure such as electricity, gas, water,railways and other logistics infrastructure. They provide sales, financing, lease, transportation and logistics, and project investment in a wide range of machineries, including large-scale plants, marine resource development facilities,ships, and aerospace, motor vehicles, construction/mining machinery and industrial machinery.  Their chemicals business encompasses trade and investment in a range of industries, from upstream chemicals such as basic chemicals, fertilizer resources, through to downstream chemicals such as functional materials, electronics materials,fertilizers,aguricultural chemicals and specialty chemicals. They are also pursuing new initiatives such as green chemicals.  Through upstream development, logistics and trading of energy resources such as oil, natural gas/LNG ,coal and uranium, they contribute to the stable supply of energy vital to both industry and society. As part of efforts to achieve a low-carbon society, they are also actively involved in next-generation energy and environemental businesses.   Adapting to changes in consumption and lifestyles while meeting consumers’ diverse needs, they provide value-added products and services, develop businesses and make investments in the fields of food resources, food products, retail support business, medical and healthcare, fashion, forestry plantation resources, real estate-related business.  Through their ICT, Finance and Logistics business, they work on a diverse range of projects aimed at developing innovative business and expanding their business field. At the same time, they aim to strengthen their company-wide earnings base by pursuing strategic projects and new opportunities and providing specialized functions that contribute to the whole Mitsui & Co. group.  Trading in various commodities led by overseas trading subisidiaries of offices located in the Americas area. Trading in various commodites led by overseas trading subsidiaries or offices located in Europe, the Middle East and Africa area. Trading in various commodities led by overseas trading subsidiaries of offices located in the Asia Pacific area.

Mitsui & Co

Cenova Capital is one of the earliest healthcare dedicated funds in China founded in 2010 by Dr Jun WU and is one of the earliest investors in private healthcare services and digital health, with helps to facilitate the transformation of healthcare in China from an exclusively state-owned system to a more efficient, market-oriented system. Cenova Capital is healthcare funds dedicated to early and growth-stage investments in the life sciences and healthcare sector in China. Since inception in 2010, Cenova now has five funds under management with investments in over 50 companies in healthcare services, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and digital heath. Cenova's investors are mainly large domestic and international institutional investors including Asian sovereign wealth funds, government institutions, insurance and financial institutions and multinational companies.

Cenova

Pavilion Capital operates as a private equity firm under Temasek Holdings. Pavilion Capital invests primarily in privately owned firms in North Asia.

Pavilion Capital

CBC Group is a healthcare-dedicated investment firm that creates value and integrates global resources.

CBC Group

ABIO-X incubates organizations at the intersection of ground-breaking technologies and cutting-edge science with the goal of bringing transformative medicines and solutions to the global market.  Each company will have its own product portfolio and operations, which will be controlled by its own leadership team and backed by a centralized shared services environment.

ABio-X

Legend Star helps entrepreneurs create great businesses through investments, CEO training sessions and an entrepreneurs alliance.   Since 2008, Legend Star has incubated and invested in nearly 600 companies and is deeply integrated in the Chinese entrepreneurial ecosystem.   Legend Star is the independent early-stage investment arm of Legend Holdings. Legend Holdings is the parent company of Lenovo, Raycom Real Estate, Joyvio Agribusiness and a large range of fast-growing Chinese companies.

Legend Star

MegaRobo is an AI and robotics company that specializes in the fields of life sciences, clinical diagnosis, and applied chemistry. They focus on the research and development of robotics and artificial intelligence technology and deeply integrate it into industry applications to provide customers with advanced intelligent automation products and solutions.  MegaRobo was founded in 2016 and is based in Beijing, China.

MegaRobo

Boquan Capital is a venture capital firm.

Boquan Capital

ENSEM Therapeutics

ENSEM Therapeutics is a pioneering drug discovery and development company that leverages its unique Kinetic EnsembleTM platform to develop innovative small-molecule precision medicines for oncology, with potential expansion into genetic disorders and other disease areas.

<div>ENSEM Therapeutics develops novel small molecule precision therapeutics with a focus on oncology. Its proprietary platform, Kinetic Ensemble, combines AI, molecular simulation, and advanced macromolecular methods and is capable of identifying overlooked drug targets and binding pockets as well as carrying out enhanced structure-based drug design.</div>

Artificial intelligence is identifying and testing new therapies faster than ever.

AI Drug Discovery

Ensem Therapeutics’ Post

<div>
 
 ENSEM Therapeutics develops novel small molecule precision therapeutics with a focus on oncology. Its proprietary platform, Kinetic Ensemble, combines AI, molecular simulation, and advanced macromolecular methods and is capable of identifying overlooked drug targets and binding pockets as well as carrying out enhanced structure-based drug design.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company&rsquo;s therapeutic pipeline included two candidates, namely 1) ETX-197, a cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) inhibitor to treat cancer, in Phase I clinical trials and 2) a phosphoinositide 3-kinase alpha (PI3K&alpha;)-targeted drug in preclinical stage. The company also had several undisclosed discovery programs in its pipeline.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231121206541/en/">
 November 2023
 </a>
 , ENSEM Therapeutics partnered with BeiGene to advance a differentiated CDK2 inhibitor.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In April 2022, ENSEM Therapeutics raised USD 67 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9626">
 Series A-2 funding
 </a>
 round led by GGV Capital. Several other investors also participated in the round including Pavilion Capital, Cenova Capital, and CBC Group. The proceeds were earmarked for developing the company&rsquo;s platform and advancing its clinical pipeline. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 HiberCell is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapies focused on oncology. It entered the AI drug discovery space when it acquired AI genomics analysis company Genuity Science (and its subsidiaries in Iceland and Ireland) in August 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Genuity Science&rsquo;s solutions include end-to-end therapeutic discovery and development services such as building custom disease datasets, discovering and prioritizing targets, identifying biomarkers, and optimizing clinical trials. Genuity Science leverages its AI-powered platform to manage, process, and analyze genomic data. HiberCell intends to use Genuity Science&rsquo;s AI/ML capabilities to advance its oncology pipeline of five programs, of which one has reached the Phase 2 clinical trial stage.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company&rsquo;s pipeline included three drug candidates, namely: 1) HC-7366, targeting the general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) kinase as part of the integrated stress response (ISR) signaling pathway; 2) HC-5404, aimed at inhibiting the PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK) involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling pathway; and 3) odetiglucan, a therapy targeting tumor-immune interactions within the tumor microenvironment​.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2023, HiberCell and Merck &amp; Co partnered to conduct a Phase Ib trial to evaluate the combination therapy of belzutifan and HC-7366 for treating clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Further, in January 2021, the company partnered with Biodesix to develop an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a companion diagnostic test.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://hibercell.com/news/hibercell-closes-67-4-million-series-b-financing-and-secures-30-million-debt-facility-from-hercules-capital/">
 May 2021
 </a>
 , HiberCell completed a Series B financing round, raising USD 67.4 million, and secured an additional USD 30 million in debt financing from Hercules Capital. The funds were expected to be used for clinical advancement of its novel therapeutic candidates. 
 
</div>

HiberCell

<div>
 
 Arbor Biotechnologies specializes in gene editing to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of indications, starting with liver-related diseases. It operates an AI-powered biodiscovery platform to discover novel CRISPR enzymes, which are sequences of repeating genetic code. To do this, its platform deploys computational search techniques, genome sequencing, gene synthesis, and high-throughput screening. This can eventually be turned into drugs or even applied to agriculture and other industrial uses. In 2018, the company announced the discovery of Cas13d, a new type of gene editing enzyme that helps to alter RNA to treat genetic diseases.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of February 2024, the company had five internal drug discovery programs, of which one was in the IND-enabling stage. It also has multiple collaborative programs under development focused on oncology and various other therapeutic areas.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has a long-standing partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals since
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005194/en/Vertex-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Establish-Collaboration-to-Discover-Novel-Proteins-to-Advance-Discovery-of-Gene-Editing-Therapies">
 January 2019
 </a>
 , which focused on developing gene-editing treatments for cystic fibrosis and four other diseases. The alliance was further extended in 
 <a href="https://www.biospace.com/article/vertex-and-arbor-strike-a-1-2-billion-deal-for-gene-editing-programs/">
 August 2021
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15741">
 January 2023
 </a>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 Other partnerships included a collaboration with 
 <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbor-biotechnologies-announces-collaboration-with-ginkgo-bioworks-to-advance-the-discovery-and-development-of-precision-gene-editors-302011991.html">
 Ginkgo Bioworks
 </a>
 (December 2023) to leverage Ginkgo's R&amp;D services to further optimize Arbor's novel precision editors, a non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/08/2380680/0/en/EdiGene-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Announce-Worldwide-Non-exclusive-License-Agreement-to-Advance-Ex-Vivo-Engineered-Cell-Therapy-Programs.html">
 EdiGene
 </a>
 (February 2022) to leverage Arbor&rsquo;s platform for ex vivo oncology therapies, a strategic research and non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://investors.tcr2.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tcr2-therapeutics-and-arbor-biotechnologies-establish">
 TCR2 Therapeutics
 </a>
 (January 2022) to develop allogeneic TRuC T-cell therapies using Arbor&rsquo;s CRISPR technology, and a license agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.lonza.com/news/2020-12-23-14-00">
 Lonza
 </a>
 (December 2020) to use Arbor&rsquo;s gene-editing technology for Lonza&rsquo;s bioproduction products and services.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In its latest Series B funding round in November 2021, which was led by Ally Bridge Group, TCG Crossover, and Temasek, Arbor Biotechnologies raised USD 215 million. The proceeds of the round were earmarked to fuel the company&rsquo;s clinical development pipeline.
 
</div>

Arbor Biotechnologies

Based in the UK, Arctoris provides an automated drug discovery platform, offering fully validated research and development (R&amp;D) processes under an Experiments-as-a-Service model. The company works with biotechnology companies, AI drug discovery companies, pharma and academic institutions enabling these institutions to run experiments in Arctoris’s platform and provides on-demand access to a broad scale of datasets for AI drug discovery companies to train their algorithms.

Arctoris

<div>
 
 Frontier Medicines leverages AI/ML technologies to develop treatments for cancer-causing proteins that are dismissed by traditional pharma companies as undruggable.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company has a proprietary chemoproteomic platform which entails an approach based on the interaction of small-molecule compounds and proteins to screen a large number of targets and combine them with a protein database that contains more than 150,000 novel binding pockets (hotspots). This enables it to access 90% of the human proteome that were not previously targeted due to lack of hotspots. The platform&rsquo;s AI/ML engine incorporates a library of diverse compounds, a hotspot map that serves as the starting point for understanding the druggability of a potential therapeutic target, and lead design and generation.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company focuses on oncology and immunology target and, as of February 2024, it had five wholly-owned therapeutic programs and three AbbVie-partnered programs in its pipeline. All programs were in their discovery stage, except the company&rsquo;s lead candidate, FMC-376 (activated and inactivated forms), focused on treating different cancer types, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is in the IND-enabling stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company entered a USD 100 million partnership with 
 <a href="https://news.abbvie.com/2020-12-02-AbbVie-and-Frontier-Medicines-Establish-Global-Partnership-to-Discover-and-Develop-Novel-Therapies-and-E3-Degraders-Against-Difficult-to-Drug-Targets">
 AbbVie
 </a>
 In December 2020 to develop small-molecule therapeutics against hard-to-drug protein targets including around 600 E3 ligases (the enzymes that drive the ubiquitination and degradation of proteins.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2021, the company raised USD 88.5 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4347">
 Series B
 </a>
 funding round co-led by Woodline Partners LP and RA Capital Management, with equal participation from Deerfield Management Company. The proceeds were earmarked for advancing the company&rsquo;s drug pipeline and expanding operations in Boston, where its new facility was to complement the company&rsquo;s headquarters in California. 
 
</div>

Frontier Medicines

<div>
 
 Verge Genomics is a biotechnology company engaged in developing therapeutics for neurological diseases using human genomics and AI to accelerate drug discovery. The main target areas are Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson&rsquo;s Disease (PD), and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).&nbsp;
 
 
 It has built a proprietary all-human platform (unlike standard clinical trials that rely on animal data), called CONVERGE, that uses data sets from brain tissue samples of deceased patients with ALS and PD. While most drugs target only one gene at a time, the company claims its technology can identify hundreds of genes that cause disease and develop drugs that target all the genes at the same time. The company uses AI technology to optimize the drug discovery process as a whole.
 
 
 As of March 2024, Verge had one drug candidate in the clinical stage (Phase I) and 10 drug candidates in the discovery stage.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has partnerships with various tissue banks (such as Harvard University and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine) and several educational institutes and foundations (such as Target ALS, Answer ALS) that enabled its drug discovery platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In addition, the company&rsquo;s customers include several pharmaceutical companies, such as 1) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-announces-research-collaboration-with-the-sheffield-institute-for-translational-neuroscience">
 Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
 </a>
 to accelerate the validation of novel drug targets and screening of drug compounds for Parkinson's disease (February 2021), 2) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4146">
 Eli Lilly
 </a>
 to research and develop novel therapies to treat ALS (July 2021), 3) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21707">
 Alexion
 </a>
 to identify novel drug targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases (September 2023), and 4) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-and-the-pritzker-neuropsychiatric-disorders-research-consortium-form-cutting-edge-schizophrenia-research-collaboration">
 Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium
 </a>
 to analyze data from schizophrenic patient&rsquo;s brain tissue with Verge&rsquo;s technology (October 2023).
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In December 2021, Verge raised USD 98 million in an oversubscribed 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7426">
 Series A
 </a>
 funding round led by BlackRock. The funds were used to scale up its pre-clinical and clinical candidate programs in the pipeline and enhance its lead therapeutics through clinical testing. 
 
</div>

Verge Genomics

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies for drug discovery services such as target selection, validation and lead optimization.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to design and run preclinical experiments.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to identify biomarkers (measurable biological signs used to determine disease progression) and predict drug response. 

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies aggregating and analyzing biomedical data with the help of AI to generate insights across the drug development pipeline.

Biotechnology companies that have integrated AI as a core component of their in-house drug development process. They typically have a few in-house drug development programs, and also collaborate with pharma companies to develop certain drugs.

Companies leverage GenAI to support drug discovery through accelerated drug designing

Companies offer AI/ML-based SaaS products to accelerate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics

Offers AI/ML-based solutions to accelerate drug discovery and development

ENSEM Therapeutics

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