Sequoia China leads $240m round for WuXi NextCode

The Series A round was raised when the company was established in 2015, with WuXi PharmaTech contributing most of the capital, alongside Amgen Ventures, a VC fund established by biopharmaceutical player Amgen, US-based Arch Venture Partners and Polaris Partners. An initial Series B round came in May in which Temasek, Yunfeng, 3W and Amgen Ventures all participated.

WuXi NextCode originated from one of the earliest large-scale global genomics initiatives, DeCode Genetics. Launched in Iceland in 1996, it created a population-based biobank containing blood and DNA samples from around 120,000 people. These samples formed the basis of studies on how certain genes function and their relationship to a broad array of diseases, and this information was used by pharmaceutical companies to develop precision medicines.

Nevertheless, DeCode struggled financially and it was bought by Amgen in 2012. The following year, Amgen spun off DeCode’s genome dataset – which by that point held data on 400,000 people – and IT systems to form NextCode Health. WuXi PharmaTech bought NextCode in 2015 in a deal worth $65 million, and merged the business with its own gene sequencing solutions provider.

The combined entity is now a fully integrated contract genomics organization with offices in China, the US, and Iceland. Its capabilities span study design, sequencing, secondary analysis, storage, interpretation, scalable analytics, and artificial intelligence and deep learning.

There are two strands to WuXi NextCode’s business: it licenses intellectual property rights to global drug developers (B2B); and it provides testing services to individual Chinese patients, using next-generation genomics to screen unborn children during pregnancy and to provide personalized wellness profiles that can help identify generic risks early on (B2C). These B2C services are provided through partnerships with hospitals.

The proceeds of the extended Series B round will be used to accelerate the extension of WuXi NextCode’s platform infrastructure and to accumulate new users and data through precision medicine and diagnostics partnerships. The company will also continue to commercialize its consumer solutions in China. About 80% of revenue comes from the B2B channel, but Hannes Smarason, CEO of WuXi NextCode, told AVCJ in May that the business could be 60% B2C by 2020.

"Genomics is an intrinsically global big data opportunity of unprecedented scale, and with breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, there will be explosive growth opportunities in the field of precision medicine," said Neil Shen, founding and managing partner of Sequoia China, in a statement. "Sequoia China attaches great importance to investment in genomics and precision medicine.”

China Renaissance Group served as the sole financial advisor to WuXi NextCode in the latest funding round.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Healthcare
• Expansion
• China
• Sequoia Capital
• Yunfeng Capital
• Temasek Holdings
• Growth capital