GL Ventures leads $58m Series B in China’s GemPharmatech

Yunfeng Capital, Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, Sequoia Capital China and TF Capital also took part in the round. The proceeds will go toward the construction of a headquarters in Nanjing, the development of the genetically-modified animal models, and marketing domestically and overseas.

CDH Investments and Sinopharm Group co-led a RMB160 million Series A for the company in 2019.

Established in 2017 by professor Xiang Gao, GemPharmatech was initially a research project co-developed by the National Resource Center for Mutant Mice of China and a research unit at Nanjing University. The founding team had 16 years of experience working with laboratory animals. The company wants to be a one-stop service for the production, distribution, and phenotyping of genetically-modified mouse models for drug developers globally.

GemPharmatech currently has a capacity of more than 150,000 mice cages and holds intellectual property rights for 10,000 different strains of mouse DNA, of which nearly 3,000 have been generated in 2020. Its claims revenue and net profit have both grown by more than 50% in the first half of the year.

In the space, Chinese contract research organization (CRO) Biocytogen last year raised a RMB543 million Series D round led by China Life Insurance and SDIC Venture Capital. It specializes in supplying drug testing facilities with genetically engineered mice for experimentation. 

Reportlinker.com projects the global humanized mice model market to grow at a compound annual rate of more than 10% through 2025. While the genetic engineering of animals has increased significantly in recent years, the use of this technology brings with it ethical issues, some of which relate to animal welfare.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Healthcare
• China
• Pharmaceuticals
• Sequoia Capital
• GL Ventures
• Morgan Stanley
• Yunfeng Capital