Source: Bureau of Intelligent Medicine

Gene editing refers to the accurate modification of the organism to modify the genes related to diseases, and is mostly used to treat rare diseases and cancers related to genetics.

Frost & Sullivan data show that between 2016 and 2020, the global gene therapy market size grew from $50 million to $2.075 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 153.3%, and the market size is expected to reach $30.539 billion by 2025.

As the frontier technology of gene therapy, gene editing has broad application prospects and a blue ocean market, which is one of the key industries contested by various countries. However, the reality is that there are very few gene editing enterprises with original innovation ability in China, on the one hand, core patents are monopolized by Western countries, and on the other hand, downstream product innovation ability lags behind Europe and the United States.

Still, there are 50 Chinese gene-editing startups, and they are putting a Chinese stamp on the circuit.

General overview

On the whole, gene editing startups have obvious coastal layout and regional agglomeration characteristics, which are the same as ADC and nuclear drug startups previously calculated, mainly concentrated in China's Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin Wing, Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing twin City economic circle.

Among them, the Yangtze River Delta is the most prominent, a total of 30, accounting for 60%, the region is the vanguard of biomedicine in China, the economy is developed, many universities, talent enrichment, and under the radiation of Shanghai, the industrial chain is perfect.

From a single city point of view, Shanghai and Suzhou have the most, with 13 and 9, respectively, followed by Beijing with 8.

Shanghai is represented by Huigene Therapeutics Co., Ltd., and Bioray Laboratories INC；Suzhou is represented by Suzhou GenAssist Therapeutics Co., Ltd. and Suzhou Qiheshengke Biotechnology Co., Ltd；Beijing is represented by Boya Gene Technology。

Among them, Boya Gene Technology Co., Ltd. is worth mentioning. Founded by Professor Wei Wensheng of the School of Life Sciences of Peking University in 2015, Boya Gene is a leading enterprise in gene editing in China, focusing on the transformation of gene editing technology into clinical practice. Its drug for the treatment of thalassemia is currently the first gene editing drug approved by the State Food and Drug Administration to carry out clinical trials.

According to the different backgrounds of the founders/teams, Chinese gene editing startups mainly fall into the following five categories:

Pharmaceutical company executive entrepreneurship, senior pharmaceutical company experts, well-known pharmaceutical company incubation, university/research institute transformation and overseas return doctor.

Among them, the transformation of universities/research institutes is the most prominent, with a total of 16, followed by pharmaceutical company executive entrepreneurship and overseas doctor are the most prominent, with 12 and 10 respectively.

From the perspective of major technologies, gene editing and cell therapy have significant cross-cutting features. For example, Suzhou Aikailiyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd., founded in 2021, is committed to innovating tumor immunotherapy and regenerative medicine therapy by applying cutting-edge technologies such as iPSC, gene editing and stem cell differentiation, and providing patients with universal, effective and affordable cell therapy drugs.

From the perspective of application, at present, China's gene editing is mainly used in the field of biomedicine, a small amount of agriculture, founded in 2017, Weimi Biotechnology (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd., is a high-tech enterprise focused on gene editing and biological breeding technology innovation and development.

2021 will be the peak of entrepreneurship

From the point of view of the establishment time, the above companies are mainly concentrated in the period of 2018-2021. Among them, in 2021 ushered in a wave of entrepreneurship, a total of 17 companies were established.

By 2022, the establishment time has been greatly reduced to only two.

In 2020, Merck announced that two patents for CRISPR gene editing technology had been approved in the United States; In the same year, CRISPR/Cas9 gene scissors won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; In 2021, many governments in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places issued policies to support the development of cell therapy, gene therapy, and gene editing, and many factors directly or indirectly stimulated a number of overseas experts to return to China to start businesses.

Represented by Suzhou GenAssist Therapeutics Co., Ltd., Suzhou Aikailiyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd.and Kunshi Biotechnology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., its founders chose to return to China at this stage and transform their research results into the company.

In addition, there are also many universities/institutes actively corresponding policies to establish companies, such as West Lake Yungu Zhiyao and Molecular Intelligence. It is worth mentioning that they have also applied artificial intelligence technology to gene editing exploration.

From the disclosed financing rounds, the early investment features are significant, and the angel round and the A round account for the highest proportion, with 12 and 18 respectively, accounting for a total of more than 50%, that is to say, China's gene editing startups are overall in the early stage of platform construction and project preclinical development.

The number of enterprises that have reached the C round and later stage financing is small (excluding strategic financing enterprises), only 3.

Only one of the above companies went to the D round, that is, Guangzhou Weiyuan Gene Technology Co., Ltd., founded in 2018, is a branch of Shenzhen Weiyuan Medical Technology Co., Ltd., LTD., with two core technology platforms: rapid diagnosis platform of gene editing technology (crispr) and second-generation high-throughput sequencing (ngs) platform.

From the disclosed investment amount, the high investment characteristics are significant, such as the establishment of Ruizheng Gene (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. only 2 months, it has obtained tens of millions of dollars in seed start-up capital.

Look to the future

From CAR-T, to mRNA, to gene editing, the global biomedical track is entering a new era of small molecule chemical drugs, macromolecular biological drugs, and CGT (Cell and general therapy) co-development.

As a major paradigm shift in human history, gene editing has a subversive impact on the future, and this is more obvious in biomedicine, which has shown great application potential in the treatment of diseases such as cancer, AIDS and genetic diseases.

But at the same time, gene editing is both a prospect and a controversy, and many problems such as off-target, gene pollution, species protection and ethics need to be solved.

In this regard, in addition to the dedicated research and development of scientists, constantly innovate technology, and minimize the safety risks of gene editing, it also needs the collective efforts of social forces, including regulation and capital.