00:00For people who are not so familiar, tell us a little bit more about your proprietary AI drug discovery platform.
00:06How is it a game changer in the pharma sector?
00:08Yes, so traditionally the drug discovery and development has been a trend-arrow process.
00:14So by leveraging the power of AI, now the process has shifted from the trend-arrow towards more predictive
00:21and more capital efficiency and faster process.
00:26And you have mentioned that I think it reduces your cost by about 60% or so.
00:31Where exactly is the cost reduction coming from?
00:33The majority of the cost reduction from the pre-clinical stage,
00:37but now we see a lot of advances in the clinical stage as well.
00:42For example, from the target discovery, the biological understanding to move from the molecule design,
00:50which is chemical related.
00:51So we utilize some multi-parameter optimization strategy and algorithms
00:56instead of the human in the loop.
01:01And I understand that it shortens the timeline of the drug development process quite a bit?
01:06Yes, indeed.
01:07So humbly speaking, we can reduce by half of the time
01:12and also probably 10 times for the pre-clinical, the capital efficiency.
01:18Yeah.
01:18So one of your key assets right now, as far as I understand,
01:22is a weight loss drug that is in phase three clinical trials, aiming to launch in 2028, 2029.
01:28But there are so many well-established brands like Eli Lilly that already have existing weight loss drugs.
01:35How are you going to wrestle market share from them?
01:38Yes, indeed.
01:39So, yeah, we do have a small molecule, GLP-1 antagonist.
01:43And so basically, we see a very differentiated profile in the clinical trials.
01:51So we expect it to launch in the fourth or fifth in the Chinese market.
01:57And we see a very obvious weight reduction, efficacy and also safety profile.
02:03So our drop-off rate in phase two-by study was only less than 1%.
02:08So very, very low drop-off rate.
02:12What is your pricing point going to be like?
02:15What is your distribution channel and your path to commercialization?
02:19Yes.
02:20So for the commercialization and also manufacturing,
02:23actually, we are really all very experienced public partners.
02:27Yeah.
02:28So that's not the strength of main rank at the current stage.
02:33So as far as I know, you're still a loss-making company at this point.
02:37And realistically, when can you reach profitability?
02:41How long would it take?
02:43Yeah, we are very focused on the capital efficiency.
02:46But we don't have a very clear goal to reach the profitable.
02:51Because now we are still pre-revenue stage.
02:54And after the launch of the first blockbuster drug in 2028 to 2029,
03:01we can expect a huge revenue income per year.
03:05But yeah, probably after another few years,
03:08when we become a Bell Pharma company,
03:11we can have a clear milestone all the time.
03:15What is your revenue projection for your blockbuster drug?
03:19In the mainland China,
03:20we expect to reach several billion per year RMB.
03:25And again, there are a lot of existing drugs,
03:29not just from the international companies like Eli Lilly,
03:31but the local companies like Hung Rui, for example.
03:34I know they're also developing their weight loss drugs.
03:38How are you going to secure your market share?
03:40Yeah, so basically we aim to produce the safe and efficacy profile.
03:47And also, since it's an oral small molecule,
03:50so the major competitors, they have injectables.
03:54So it means we are easy to carry.
03:56And also from the safety-wise profile,
04:00we have a very low GF adverse events happening.
04:04And also from the, for example,
04:06liver-related and metabolic advantages,
04:09we see a very clear differentiation.
04:12And that comes actually from the very differentiated biological design.
04:18Yeah, and I know that you were part of the NVIDIA startup accelerator program many years ago,
04:24before the U.S. export controls come into place.
04:27And I believe you were using NVIDIA's chips and its architecture as well.
04:33But since the export controls came in,
04:35has that impacted your compute capacity
04:38or your ability to access their hardware, for example?
04:42Yeah, that's, yeah, that's give us, yeah, some influence.
04:46Yeah, for sure.
04:47So traditionally, we have built a small,
04:49we call it cloud computing by ourselves.
04:52So that's located in our Hangzhou office.
04:56And after that, yeah,
04:57when we want to expand to a larger scale of computation powers,
05:01we're relating more on our partners,
05:03such as Amazon or Alibaba,
05:05their cloud computing cluster.
05:08So which means that's more expensive, yeah.
05:12So it's more expensive.
05:13Does it affect the capacity
05:15or the efficiency of the compute?
05:18Indeed.
05:18So because we're really in our third party
05:20instead of our, you know, proprietary pipeline,
05:23so from the data security
05:24and also from the overall solution,
05:27yeah, we need to take more care, you know,
05:29of that process by ourselves.
05:31As part of that NVIDIA Startup Accelerator program,
05:34what was the relationship at the time?
05:36Was NVIDIA invested or, like, supporting you in any other way
05:40besides offering the technology?
05:42And how has that relationship evolved
05:44given the broader geopolitical environment now?
05:47Oh, yeah.
05:49In 2023 and 2024,
05:51we have some close discussion
05:52with the NVIDIA team in China and the States.
05:55And, yeah, we talk about certain opportunities,
05:58but since the tension between Chinese and U.S. government,
06:02I think that, yeah, has shifted, yeah.
06:05That has shifted.
06:06Shifting, yeah.
06:07So in that case,
06:08are you looking to pivot elsewhere?
06:10Are you looking for alternative investors?
06:11How are you dealing with this sort of fallout
06:14in the geopolitical front?
06:15Yes, for the funding perspective,
06:17so our main investors,
06:18they are from the healthcare sector.
06:21And, yeah, we are planning to be
06:23in the pre-IPO stage recently,
06:26so we are going to meet a lot of internet
06:29or TMT investors, yeah.
06:32Are these mostly Chinese capital?
06:34Or how much interest are you getting
06:36from international investors?
06:37And what is your timeline to the IPO?
06:39Yeah, we see the IPO
06:41so it's very natural
06:42when we reach the next milestones,
06:45which is, you know, the big deal
06:46for the GLP-1 small molecule
06:49and also other BDs when that happens, yeah.
06:53Do you have a guidance of a timeline
06:56that we can expect?
06:57Yeah, probably next year, yeah.
06:58Okay.
06:59You are actually still a very lean company.
07:02I believe you have 50 employees,
07:04and yet you have already quite a large pipeline
07:06of drugs in development.
07:08Can you tell us about what else
07:10are you pouring research into what else
07:13is closest to commercialization now?
07:15Yeah, so apart from the metabolic disease space,
07:18we are very focused on the other.
07:20We are very interested in the CNS space,
07:23which is longevity space.
07:25So in 2023, we are in the consortium,
07:29which is funded by TAMAS from Singapore
07:32and the U.S. government.
07:33So we study anti-aging
07:35and discovered the new biological findings
07:37to try to intervene the CNS disease.
07:41And apart from that,
07:43we are developing the, you know,
07:46the novel platform
07:47that's not only to target the protein targets,
07:51which is a small molecule
07:53and also antibody
07:54and other modalities such as SRNA drugs.
07:58And aside from developing your own drugs,
08:01I wonder, are you getting interest
08:02from other drug companies
08:04to license your proprietary drug discovery software?
08:08It's called MAP, right?
08:09Are you getting interest to license
08:10and maybe co-develop drugs with you?
08:13Yes, for the medicine,
08:16yeah, we do have some under-state discussions
08:19and we expect that to happen in 12 months.
08:23Yeah, we will have some BD recently.
08:26But apart from the platform,
08:28yeah, traditionally we've been partnering
08:29with a few public companies,
08:32including Merck from the States
08:34and also a lot of public companies in China
08:36and Hong Kong.
08:38So your key asset right now,
08:40the weight loss drug
08:41that you're about to launch in China
08:43in a few years' time.
08:44Do you have plans to sell that overseas as well?
08:46And has there been challenges
08:47in getting the regulatory approval
08:49and the certifications?
08:51What's the progress?
08:52Yeah, the first generation of the drugs,
08:55the single target is JLP1.
08:58Yeah, we are launching,
08:59we are about to launch it in a few years.
09:01But we are also developing the franchise
09:04the portfolio of, you know,
09:06the obesity and type 2D drugs.
09:09Yeah, so we expect to have some
09:12novel new drugs to launch
09:14or to, you know,
09:15to be the lessons to partner
09:17with our partners in a few years.
09:21International partners as well.
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