MabPlex, the China CDMO-Featured Company Obtains its First Funding

Jan 18th, 2019 / EqualOcean / - According to EqualOcean’s sister website, iyiou.com, MabPlex completed its series A funding in amount of CNY 400 million (USD 59 million), which was led by Shenzhen Capital Group (深创投) and Sinotex Investment & Development Company (SIDC, 国投创业). The funding will be spent on upgrading technological platform, improving the capability of phase III antibody therapeutics and commercialized production, and the international strategy.

Encouraged by the government, the pharmaceutical industry has entered an optimistic phase. The funding events total amount and numbers displayed an increasing tendency, which is beyond expectation during a capital winter while most industries investment heats are cooling off.

Even the financing amount per investment demonstrates an ascending slope, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry’s ability in attracting new cash is unquestionable. EqualOcean reported another CDMO (Contract Development & Manufacturing Organization) biotechnology company ThousandOAKS Biopharmaceuticals (TOAKSB) earlier, TOAKSB is a CDMO company founded in 2017 while MabPlex was founded in 2013 and also the second founded CDMO company in China. China’s CDMO pharmaceutical enterprises are appealing to investors these days since the environment is changing. The CDMO/CMC market size reached CNY 37 billion (USD 5.5 billion) in 2018 and is expected to realize CNY 44.1 billion (USD 6.5 million), CNY 52.8 billion (USD 7.8 billion), and CNY 62.6 billion (USD 8.2 billion) in year 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively with a CAGR at 18.8%.

The China Health 2030 plan proposed by the government has encouraged the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry to grow. In the old days, China’s pharmaceutical companies must obtain the license for selling drugs in order to produce drugs, but now, the manufacturing license is isolated from the old license and hence gave birth to CDMO or CMC (Chemistry Manufacturing Controls) industry.

CDMO and CMC’s existence fills in a critical ring in the pharmaceutical industry. CDMO/CMC provides the half-made pharmaceutical products or laboratory-needed biopharmaceutical materials to clients, who are too big to make these products or too small to manufacture them. Big (or giant) pharmaceutical companies would not want to waste resources in producing half-made materials since the process will be time-consuming and talent-wasted; small pharmaceutical companies might not afford machines, time and hands to produce those half-made materials – though needed commonly but with high fixed costs and entrance bar.

CDMO/CMC companies dedicate in solving the middle part of the pharmaceutical production process and saving time and costs for their clients. Beyond, CDMO/CMC enterprises like TOAKSB and MabPlex do not only provide production materials, but also offer pharmaceutical solutions to clients. For instance, a MabPlex’s client might work on ADC (Antibody-Drug Conjugate) while MabPlex can provide ADC-related advice and consultation for this client so that the pace of new drug R&D is accordingly accelerated by the solution provided from the CDMO/CMC end.