If a country wants to get rid of the fate of "at the mercy of others", it must be self-reliant on the technology of "bottleneck", which depends on the hard work of a group of scientists and scientific research enterprises with a sense of national mission.
5 years ago, Xu Yaochang, "post-50s" Yu Hongping, "post-60s" Chen Zhui, the three generations of "returnees" of the old, middle-aged and young people founded Heyu Pharmaceutical because of their common dream of making original innovative drugs in China. was evacuated from China in the wave of early R&D centers of foreign pharmaceutical companies and lay off employees, silently recruiting troops to buy horses .
5 years later, the three entrepreneurs led a group of young scientists to work tirelessly, not only won breakthrough progress for China in the field of "bottleneck" tumor-original small molecule new drugs, but also ushered in the IPO bell for Heyu Pharmaceutical.
Heyu Pharmaceutical's gong-beating site
Pharmaceutical Rubik's Cube Invest learned that On October 15, Heyu Pharmaceutical, a leading company in China's independent research and development innovative drugs, was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The issuance price of Heyu Pharmaceutical is HK$12.46 per share, with the amount of funds raised approximately HK$1.754 billion (before exercising the over-allotment). As of press time, the total market value is nearly HK$8 billion .
Before going public, Heyu Pharmaceutical has completed multiple rounds of financing, attracting celebrity capital such as , Eli Lilly Asia Fund, CICC Capital, Qiming Venture Capital, Zhengxin Valley Capital, Temasek and other star capital.
What is particularly noteworthy is that the cornerstone investor lineup of Heyu Pharmaceutical's IPO is very luxurious, including LAV, UBS, BlackRock, Warburg Pincus, Temasek, OrbiMed, Vivo, Hudson Bay, Lake Bleu Prime, Janchor Partners, AIHCh and other well-known medical and health funds. The subscription of accounts for 56% of .
But what really attracted the attention of Pharmaceutical Rubik's Cube Invest is that and Yu Pharmaceutical have consistently persistent and focused scientifically, as well as a strong sense of national mission . Behind this is the story of a "post-50s" who has been wandering overseas for many years and has been treated coldly. After returning to China for two "half-starting businesses" times, he firmly started his own business with his two partners.
After "cold reception", innovation and entrepreneurship
Heyu Pharmaceutical founder and CEO Dr. Xu Yaochang
was born in 1956. Xu Yaochang, one of the co-founders of Heyu Pharmaceuticals, is a "post-50s" pharmaceutical man with rich experience. In the 1980s, he was sent to the United States to study and obtained a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago. After graduating from a doctorate in , Xu Yaochang entered the American industry to study and work. In a foreign-funded pharmaceutical company, he deeply felt the "cold treatment" of the Chinese at that time .
At that time, few Chinese and even Asians were engaged in innovative drug research and development in multinational pharmaceutical companies. It was even more fantasy to be promoted to executives. However, through his own efforts, Xu Yaochang grew from a scientific researcher in the laboratory to the first Chinese to enter the management of the R&D of the new drug by Eli Lilly, a multinational pharmaceutical company, and fully demonstrated the Chinese's ability to innovate to the large pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
"At that time, there were two or three thousand people in Eli Lilly doing early research and development. That year, there were only 5 pre-clinical candidate compounds (Pre-Clinical-Candidate) that reached a milestone, and there were only 3 people in the laboratory I managed, but I made 2. So one day, the CEO of Eli Lilly came to my laboratory to visit me and wanted to know what magic I had." Xu Yaochang said with a smile.
Although Xu Yaochang has made his mark in Eli Lilly, what he is thinking about is the development of China's pharmaceutical industry. In 2003, Xu Yaochang came to Zhangjiang, Shanghai for inspection as an executive of Eli Lilly. After seeing the huge gap in industrial strength, he had the idea of " Western Learning Eastward " to take root in China.
At that time, Xu Yaochang first introduced Eli Lilly's new drug research and development outsourcing orders for Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Later, he was invited to join the multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis , and participated in the lead in the establishment of the Novartis China R&D Center. From design and construction to recruiting soldiers, Xu Yaochang did everything himself, which was almost a "semi-entrepreneurship", turning a wasteland in Zhangjiang, Shanghai into the Novartis R&D building .
changed from a wasteland to a Novartis R&D building
But just after everything was on track, Xu Yaochang chose to start his second "semi-entrepreneurship" and entered the local pharmaceutical company Hausen Pharmaceutical in charge of early research and development, and successfully helped Hausen develop a number of major innovative drugs such as ametinib, making Hausen Pharmaceutical transform from a large pharmaceutical company with a good reputation in generic drugs into an innovative pharmaceutical company.
After two "semi-entrepreneurship" successes, Xu Yaochang was not satisfied. He has always dreamed of making original innovative drugs in China . So in 2016 when Me-too and Fast-follower were just starting out, he and Yu Hongping and Chen Zhu, two old friends who had worked together for many years, hit it off. With the goal of developing China's original innovative drugs for First-in-class and Best-in-class, they founded Heyu Pharmaceutical in Zhangjiang, Shanghai.
Foreign enterprises retreated and stood up
In Zhangjiang, Shanghai in 2015, a drastic change in foreign-funded pharmaceutical R&D institutions is quietly brewing. R&D scientists who originally worked silently in foreign pharmaceutical companies became increasingly nervous. In the following years, many multinational pharmaceutical companies such as AbbVie, Novartis, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and other multinational pharmaceutical companies have successively announced the abolition of China's early R&D centers, and a large number of Chinese early R&D scientists have been laid off.
In this storm of foreign companies' retreat, Xu Yaochang has a unique vision and has seen the opportunity to strengthen the scientific talent team for Heyu Pharmaceutical.
"At that time, many foreign pharmaceutical companies announced the closure of China's early R&D centers. So many scientists who made original innovative drugs had nothing to do at once, and I think it's a pity. So we took the opportunity to select a group of excellent scientists to join the team and work with the outstanding scientists we attracted from foreign pharmaceutical companies and domestic pharmaceutical companies. I am confident that I will definitely get things done ." Xu Yaochang said.
Not only that, Heyu Pharmaceutical also took over the original GSK China R&D Center building located in Zhangjiang Biomedical Base. On the basis of the retreat of foreign companies, it rebuilt the R&D center, and found a new goal of developing China's independent innovative drugs for a group of young scientists.
" To this day, we have a total of 153 employees, more than 100 of them are R&D scientists, 80% have a master's degree in , and 30% have a doctorate degree. I can proudly say that and Yu have more than 95% of their energy is focused on R&D projects . This is because our founding team understands both new drug research and development and management, and can minimize unnecessary internal friction. Even some of our investors say that Heyu is the most worry-free pharmaceutical project they invest in. "Xu Yaochang said.
and Yu Pharmaceutical's focus on scientific research and development can also be seen from the financial perspective. The prospectus shows that and Yu Pharmaceutical's losses in 2019, 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 reached 134 million yuan, 707 million yuan and 124 million yuan respectively. In addition to the 571 million yuan loss caused by the increase in the fair value of the convertible preferred stock due to the increase in the company's valuation in 2019, it is more due to the R&D investment in .
prospectus shows that and Yu Pharmaceutical's R&D expenditure in 2019, 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 reached 81.5 million yuan, 133 million yuan and 38.11 million yuan respectively.
5 years ago, and made high-quality original
With the concentrated investment in people, finance and materials, and Yu Pharmaceutical have established a research and development pipeline for 14 drug candidates in five years, of which 12 were independently developed internally and 2 externally introduced candidates . What makes
unique is that since its inception, Heyu Pharmaceutical has not followed the popular targets and fields, but has taken small-molecular tumor immunity and small-molecular tumor precision treatment as the core direction, and has taken a different approach and found more accurate and cutting-edge fields to find opportunities for differentiated competition.
and Yu Pharmaceutical's R&D pipeline Source: Prospectus screenshot
" As a startup company, we must be very focused. We cannot be as comprehensive as big companies, nor can we follow the trend of the sudden popular fields . During the 5 years of entrepreneurship, we have also felt the pressure of being Me-too and Fast-follower, but we have all taken it down. The goals we started our business 5 years ago have not changed so far and have been implemented. "Xu Yaochang said.
prospectus shows that Heyu Pharmaceutical has currently entered the clinical trial launch stage. Among them, the FGFR4 inhibitor, ABSK011, has entered the clinical phase Ib/II, and the pan-FGFR inhibitor introduced from AstraZeneca , has also entered the clinical phase Ib/II . In addition to pursuing R&D speed and efficiency,
is also particularly focused and strives for excellence in the quality of drug scientific discoveries.
"In the research and development process, the original innovative drug of must constantly solve problems, and cannot deceive yourself and catch up with progress regardless of everything. Otherwise, the clinical stage of "burning money" will ultimately fail, which will only cause greater losses ." Xu Yaochang said, "We invested a lot of time and energy at the beginning of R&D to solve various problems, such as making an oral PD-L1 small molecule innovative drug with small molecule. Project, we synthesize more than 1,000 compounds to find a high-quality preclinical candidate compound. Some compounds need more than two weeks to synthesize. We never cut corners on these time-consuming and labor-intensive scientific problems of . "
innovative drug research and development is a long process. From preclinical to phase I, phase II, and phase III, R&D investment is getting bigger and bigger, and the losses caused by failure are also greater. The problem is solved better in the scientific research stage of preclinical research, which can save time, money and increase value for subsequent clinical practice.
Xu Yaochang said that intensive cultivation of not only makes the drugs in Heyu Pharmaceutical pipeline encounter fewer problems and advance faster, but also makes it easier to win attention in more mature pharmaceutical market players in Europe and the United States. This will provide convenience for Heyu Pharmaceutical's future foreign cooperation . After
IPO, Heyu Pharmaceutical will make full use of the resources and status of listed companies to grow and develop faster and more efficiently. What kind of innovative answer can this company that has gathered scientists to start a business in the end? It's worth waiting and seeing.
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