China CRO Safe Pharma gets $71m Series D
Safe Pharmaceutical Research Institute, a Beijing-based clinic research organization (CRO) focused on novel drugs, has raised a CNY500m (USD 71m) Series D round led by SDIC Venture Capital and China State-owned Venture Capital Fund.
Other investors include Taiping Medical, CICC Capital, and a vehicle under FOF Capital.
CICC led a CNY 300m Series C last year with participation from GF Qianhe Investment, TH Capital, and Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology. This followed two tranches in 2020: a CNY 200m Series B from China Life, Legend Capital, Mefund Capital, and Probe Capital; and an extension of undisclosed size from SDIC, Legend, and Probe, according to AVCJ Research.
Safe Pharma's first funding came in 2016 - the year of its founding - from QF Capital. Comway Capital and Legend invested in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
The new capital will go towards the construction of an innovative pharmaceutical CRO service platform and the development of cell gene therapy (CGT) research capacity.
The company also plans to deepen its one-stop CRO offering. It already claims to have expertise across the entire innovative drug R&D value chain, including experience helping start-ups navigate the investigational new drug (IND) applications and new drug application (NDA) processes.
Other investment activity in China's CRO space this year includes a USD 52 Series A for Elixir and a USD 150m Series D for US and China-based CRO company ClinChoice. Legend led the latter round.
As biotech investment has slumped in China amid significant corrections in public markets globally, CROs and CDMOs (contract development and manufacturing organizations) have been regarded as safe havens. This is based on the assumption that revenue streams will remain stable regardless of how effectively a drug is developed and commercialised.
However, this was recently disputed by James Huang, founder of healthcare-focused Panacea Venture. He noted that CDMOs are undergoing consolidation as smaller players – many of them drug developers that received government incentives to establish drug manufacturing facilities in industrial parks – struggle to stay afloat.
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