Brii Biosciences Debuts With China Public Health Strategy and USD260 Mln Financing Backed by Alibaba
Dou Shicong
DATE:  May 25 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Brii Biosciences Debuts With China Public Health Strategy and USD260 Mln Financing Backed by Alibaba Brii Biosciences Debuts With China Public Health Strategy and USD260 Mln Financing Backed by Alibaba

(Yicai Global) May 25 -- Brii Biosciences, a Chinese biomedical startup, has been unveiled with significant partnerships and USD260 million financing, which it will spend on the research and development of infectious disease drugs to help enhance China's public health system.

Sequoia Capital, a well-known US venture capital firm in the US, and Yunfeng Capital, a fund co-founded by Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., took part in this round of funding, reported venture capital and private equity news site PEdaily.

"The pace of innovation has accelerated over the past decade, resulting in dramatically better treatments and cures for life-threatening diseases, but the reach of those innovations in China has been limited," said Zhi Hong, co-founder, president, and chief executive officer of Brii Biosciences. "Delivering innovative medicines to Chinese patients constitutes not just a market opportunity but an opportunity to significantly improve public health. China needs faster, affordable access to new therapies, and has the public health infrastructure and advanced digital and data technologies to enable that at scale."

Alibaba Health Information Technology Co. will help Brii Biosciences optimize clinical research and commercial development process to speed up access to new drugs. "The partnership between AliHealth and Brii Bio can bring our cutting-edge consumer platforms and digital data capabilities to optimizing the life cycle of medicine discovery, development, and delivery," said Eddie Wu, chairman of AliHealth. "With improved efficiency, we will deliver more affordable and patient friendlier innovations to China."

Partnerships

Brii, which stands for breakthrough innovation and insight, has teamed up with Vir Biotechnology Inc., the leading developer of innovative drugs for infectious diseases in the US. The company has been licensed exclusively in China for four innovative drugs for infectious diseases.

Brii Biosciences has also entered into cooperation with WuXi AppTec Co., a major pharmaceutical R&D service provider in China and got the priority to use the latter's research and development platform.

It was founded last month to focus on the development and production of innovative drugs for the treatment of chronic and infectious diseases, and to provide users with healthcare and health solutions, public information shows. It has offices in in Shanghai, Beijing, San Francisco, California, and Durham, North Carolina, the US.

China faces significant medical needs in the prevention, treatment and cure of major infectious diseases, which also poses a challenge to pharmaceutical innovation, said George Scangos, CEO of Vir Biotechnology. The company looks forward to working with Brii Biosciences to jointly promote the rapid development of new drugs for infectious diseases in China and around the world, he added.

Editor: Mevlut Katik

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Keywords:   Brii Biosciences,Alibaba,Sequoia Capital,WuXi AppTec,Vir Biotechnology