WI Harper Group | December 23, 2019
WI Harper Group attended the 2019 China AI Drug Discovery Summit held by Pharnex in Shanghai. At this summit, WI Harper Group was awarded the Top 5 China AI Drug Discovery and Investment Company. Dr. Shuai Li, Senior Associate focusing on China healthcare investment at WI Harper Group, was an honored guest at the summit and shared his thoughts. Dr. Xiaobing Deng, CEO of WI Harper- backed IIPharma, spoke on the topic of “AI New Drug R&D Project Selection”.
On December 20th and December 21st, the 2019 China AI Drug Discovery Summit was held in Shanghai by Pharnex. This is one of the largest AI discovery summits in China’s healthcare industry, bringing together nearly all of China’s AI drug discovery companies. 500 healthcare industry elites and leaders of the AI field came together and discussed the current and future state of China’s healthcare industry with a strong emphasis on policy and innovation trends.
With the AI technology wave sweeping the world, AI companies in China are springing up. They are recognized by well-known investment institutions as well as domestic and oversea industries and academies. Capital plays a key role in the development of the AI industry. During the event, WI Harper Group was recognized as one of the “Top 5 China AI Drug Discovery and Investment Company”, and IIPharma was recognized as one of the “Top 10 China AI Drug Discovery and Investment Company”.
Dr. Shuai Li (Senior Associate of China healthcare investment at WI Harper Group), Dr. Jian Ma (Co-founder and CEO of XtalPi), Xing Li (CEO & Founder of DIP), Dr. Penggao Chen (Vice President of Zhen Fund), and Dr. Rui Ma (Vice President of Frees Fund) all joined the round table and discussed the opportunities of AI technology, how new drugs choose AI technology, and the concerns of investors. The group of industry leaders in the AI field all shared their insights. The round table was hosted by Zeshan Liu, founder of IFSC.
Dr. Shuai Li, Senior Associate focusing on China healthcare investment at WI Harper Group, shared on the topic of how to find increment and improve efficiency in drug discovery. There are over 20,000 human protein-coding genes, 10% – 15% of which are related to diseases. There are less than 700 kinds of small-molecule drug targets and the easy targets have been developed completely. Companies that can find the hidden gems are the winners in the future healthcare field. The time and costs of drug R&D are increasing but AI technology is a powerful breakthrough point. Although there are still many obstacles and doubts, it is the future that must be embraced. Dr. Shuai Li also pointed out that the AI Drug Discovery and Development field should ponder on (1) how to obtain high-quality data, (2) how to have interdisciplinary talents collaborate perfectly, (3) how to deal with the business model of CRO and drug-making, (4) how to improve the drug development chain and prevent adverse.
Dr. Xiaobing Deng, CEO of WI Harper- backed IIPharma, spoke on the topic of “AI New Drug R&D Project Selection”. Dr. Xiaobing Deng made profound analysis on AI new drug R&D project selections, application scenario of AI in new drug development, data problems in image recognition, data problems in drug discovery, the field of drug design has been deeply analyzed, introduced AI virtual screening, prediction of AI molecular properties, AI molecular design and other aspects. Dr. Xiaobing Deng shared that China has broad market prospects. IIPharam will continue to use and develop AI new drug R & D technology, lead the future development direction of the healthcare industry, and become a benchmark enterprise of new drug R & D in China.
| WI Harper Group Investment Layout
Founded in 1993, WI Harper is a pioneering cross-border venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage companies across the US, Greater China, and the Asia Pacific. We have invested in more than 400 companies that significantly advance – or even reinvent the wheel – the fields of healthcare, biotech, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, fin-tech, sustainability, and new media.
In the field of healthcare, WI Harper Group primarily focuses on digital medicine, innovative biotechnological drugs, medical devices, and medical services. The company also focuses on the interdisciplinary intersection of healthcare and other technologies, such as combinations of healthcare and AI, blockchain, 5G, and other new technologies. WI Harper has invested in and successfully exited from iKang, MedicalSystem, Edan, Chemclin, and many more. WI Harper has currently invested in leading start-up companies such as EdiGene, Synthego, XW Laboratories, Resvent, Labtech, Panorama Medicine, IIPharma, Enginebio, DeepBiome, Histo, Neuracle, Amwise Diagnostics, and many more.
In search for new growth opportunities, WI Harper Group has set up several companies with different perspectives to enter the healthcare field of “AI+ Drug R&D” to build AI technology platform to improve the efficiency of drug screening and drug design, new usage for AI technology (RNA splicing), new targets and combinations (gene network analysis), new resources (Microbiome data) and so on.
Panorama Medicine
Panorama Medicine is a VC-backed startup founded by a multidisciplinary team of world-renowned computational and experimental RNA biologists. The company has leveraged the founding team’s expertise to create a drug discovery platform that integrates genomics, big data, and computing to develop therapeutic interventions (RNA Splicing) for RNA defects in disease.
IIPharma
IIPharma is a start-up that utilizes advanced AI technologies towards innovative drug discovery. The company offers Intelligent Pharma Brain™, which is a proprietary AI + new drug R&D platform.
DeepBiome
DeepBiome is an AI computational drug discovery company that was spun out from Harvard and the MIT Broad Institute. The company is focused on the highly promising and cutting-edge field of the human microbiome, a largely untapped treasure trove for drug leads discovery. DeepBiome aspires to revolutionize the currently costly and inefficient drug discovery process by utilizing the latest artificial learning.
Enginebio
Enginebio was founded by Tim Lu, a scientist at the world’s leading MIT Broad Research Institute. The company has proprietary and patented technologies oriented around deciphering the complexity of biology networks, including both high-throughput wet-lab experimentation and AI algorithms for drug discovery and cellular reprogramming.
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