Ionova Life Science Co., Ltd.

SHANGHAI & BOSTON--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Perpetual Medicines today announced it has closed an $8 million seed financing to advance its integrated computational design and synthesis platform for peptide drug discovery. The financing round was led by Chengwei Capital. The company also announced key appointments to its leadership team, including Kerry L. Blanchard, MD, PhD, Co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Ved Srivastava, PhD, Chief Technology Officer; and Xiang Ye, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer. “Perpetual Medicines is capitalizing on recent advances in computational modeling based on artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning that enable access for the first time to the enormous, untapped peptide chemical space for drug discovery,” said Dr. Blanchard. “We have built an integrated platform that allows us to virtually iterate through millions of peptide sequences using physics-based computations to predict binding and drug-like properties followed by integration with experimental data to discover and optimize product candidates. This approach has the potential to accelerate peptide drug discovery, reduce cost, and increase the quality of drug candidates. With the financing the company will advance our most advanced program to the clinical stage and continue to build our preclinical portfolio of projects in oncology, autoimmunity, and metabolic diseases.” Dr. Blanchard noted that peptide therapeutics have become the most rapidly growing sector of the pharmaceutical industry with predicted sales exceeding $140 billion 1 /year by 2030. “Peptides fill the gap between small molecule drugs and therapeutic antibodies,” he said. “They are large enough and selective enough to block interactions between proteins inside and outside cells. These attributes, along with access to vastly expanded chemical space, will open new target classes and allow us to attack previously undruggable pathobiology.” Senior Management Team Named Perpetual has assembled a highly experienced senior management team, who have collectively accrued more than 120 years of drug hunting experience and have helped lead the development of more than ten marketed peptide-based therapeutics. The senior management team includes: Kerry L. Blanchard, MD, PhD – Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Blanchard is an experienced entrepreneur who has built deep R&D leadership and management experience over a 40+ year career. He was instrumental in the discovery of four marketed products, oversaw the clinical development and approval of more than 25 new medicines in China, and led two successful IPOs on the Hong Kong stock exchange. He has deep experience in developing peptide therapeutics from vancomycin and colistins to incretins. Prior to co-founding Perpetual Medicines, he was CEO of Everest Medicines. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer at Innovent, and he held several senior R&D leadership positions at Eli Lilly and Company over a nearly 18-year career, most recently as Senior Vice President China Drug Development. Prior to his industry career, he spent nearly 20 years in academic roles at LSU Health Science Center and Harvard Medical School. Ved Srivastava, PhD, Chief Technology Officer – Dr. Srivastava brings to Perpetual Medicines more than 25 years of experience in the discovery and development of peptide therapeutics. He joined Perpetual from Aktis Oncology. He was instrumental in the development of several peptide-based drugs, including Byetta™, Symlin™ and Bydureon™. He has served as Head of Peptide Chemistry at both GlaxoSmithKline and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. He was also a co-founder at Phoundry Pharma and Vice President of Chemistry at both Intarcia and Aktis. Ved is a former president of the American Peptide Society (APS). Xiang Ye, PhD – Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Ye’s experience includes a more than 22-year career at Eli Lilly, where he focused on drug research and translational medicine. During his career, he led the discovery and development of eight clinical candidates, including a globally approved cancer drug, Verzenio® (abemaciclib). He joined Perpetual Medicines from Risen Pharmaceuticals, where he served as Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to Risen, he also served as Chief Scientific Officer at Ionova Life Sciences. About Chengwei Capital Chengwei Capital is a Shanghai-headquartered venture capital firm specialized in investing in high-end technology and innovative startups. It is one of the earliest venture capital firms in China and launched China’s first evergreen fund in 2004. Chengwei Capital currently has over USD $3 billion in NAV under management. About Perpetual Medicines Perpetual Medicines is a fully integrated computational peptide therapeutics company that aims to build a next-generation peptide drug discovery engine. The company’s platform combines the predictive power of leading-edge computational physics methods and next-generation AI technologies with advanced synthetic chemistry to access vast, unexplored peptide chemical space. The platform is designed to address previously undruggable targets, accelerate discovery and enhance the quality of peptide drug candidates. The company has operations in Shanghai, China and Boston, MA. Learn more at: perpetualmeds.com ________________________________ 1 Evaluate Pharma

Funding to accelerate the discovery and development of drugs for high value and traditionally undruggable targets SAN JOSE, Calif., July 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- BridGene Biosciences, Inc., a biotechnology company leveraging a proprietary chemoproteomic platform to discover and develop small-molecule drugs for high-value, traditionally undruggable targets, today announced the completion of a $38.5 million Series B financing by Lapam Capital, Junson Capital and Dyee Capital. Proceeds from the offering will be used to further develop BridGene's chemoproteomic platform IMTAC™, which enables the screening of small molecules against the whole proteome or against a prioritized target in live cells to discover drug candidates for high value and traditionally undruggable targets that drive diseases, including cancers. The unique advantage of IMTAC™ is that it can efficiently identify hits for two major types of traditionally undruggable targets. By using covalent small molecules, BridGene can identify hits for targets with shallow binding pockets. BridGene can also identify hits via live cell screening for targets with temporary binding pockets that only form in live cells such as protein: protein interactions. This brings unprecedented opportunities for the development of small-molecule drugs for traditionally undruggable targets. The proceeds will also be used to develop BridGene's leading pipeline project, a covalent TEAD inhibitor, as well as a few other undisclosed first-in-class oncology pipeline projects, which were initiated based on discoveries using the IMTAC™ platform. "This financing, along with our collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical announced last year, significantly strengthens our resources to discover breakthrough medicines for patients," said Ping Cao, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of BridGene. "Our pioneering work has expanded the scope of chemoproteomics technology from screening just covalent small molecules to also screening non-covalent small molecules, and from targeting just cysteine to targeting multiple amino acids. Our technology uniquely enables us to discover small-molecule drugs for traditionally undruggable targets with unparalleled speed and efficiency. It also enables us to build a pipeline with first-in-class drugs targeting well-known high-value and traditionally undruggable targets. Our long-term goal is to find small-molecule drugs for the most important targets in the proteome." "BridGene's chemoproteomics platform IMTAC™ is impressive and unique. It breaks the limitations of traditional chemoproteomics technology and greatly expands its scope. BridGene has established an outstanding scientific team, which has extensive experience in chemoproteomic technology and drug development. We believe that BridGene has the potential to grow to a leading company in the field of drugging traditionally undruggable targets," said Mr. Zhihua Yu, Chairman of Lapam Capital. About Lapam Capital Headquartered in Beijing, Lapam Capital is a leading healthcare venture capital firm in China. Lapam is currently managing five RMB funds and one USD fund, with more than 10 billion RMB under management. Lapam Capital focuses on investments in early to middle stage fast-growing companies that have innovative pharmaceuticals and medical devices. It has invested in about 60 biopharmaceutical companies and 10 medical device companies to date, including Betta Pharma, RemeGen Co. Ltd., Clover Biopharmaceuticals, Yahong Meditech, Stemirna Therapeutics, Binhui Biotech, ImmuneOnco Biopharmaceuticals, Biostar Pharmaceuticals, Aibo Medical Robot Co. Ltd. and many other companies with great potential. Lapam Capital has a professional investment team with more than 20 years' international and domestic biopharmaceutical industry R&D and management experience and can provide comprehensive value-added supports for the invested companies. About Junson Capital Junson Capital is a global multi-asset investment management company with venture capital and private equity, public market investments, real estate investments, and alternative investments. With its long dedication to technology and healthcare, Junson Capital manages more than 30 portfolio companies and aims at backing disruptive technology and science leaders. As a global organization, Junson Capital has investment professionals located in Hong Kong, New York, Palo Alto and Singapore. About Dyee Capital Dyee Capital focuses on investments in the fields of healthcare and information technology. The management team has many years of investment, investment banking, and industry experience, as well as extensive market resources and professional post-investment service experience. Dyee Capital has invested in many innovative pharmaceutical companies, including Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals, Allist Pharmaceuticals, InventisBio, Ionova Life Science, Ark Biosciences, Leads Biolabs, Yingli Pharma, and Zhimeng Biopharma. About BridGene Biosciences BridGene is a biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing innovative small molecules that drug traditionally undruggable targets, providing new paths to treat diseases. By using its proprietary chemoproteomics platform, IMTAC™, BridGene can screen small molecules against proteins in live cells to discover drug candidates for high value and traditionally undruggable targets. For this purpose, BridGene takes advantage of its proprietary, diverse library of tagged, drug-like small molecules. The ultimate goal is to enable breakthrough small molecule drug discovery with expanded mechanisms to treat diseases with targets previously inaccessible to small molecules. The uniqueness of BridGene's technology allows it to perform IMTAC™ screening for both covalent and non-covalent molecules, target different amino acids and discover new targets for disease treatments by deconvoluting phenotypic screening hits. The company is advancing a diversified pipeline of first-in-class drugs for targets in multiple disease areas. For more information, visit . Contact Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc. Investors Jonathan Nugent +1-205-566-3026 [email protected] Media Bill Borden +1-732-910-1620 [email protected] Dave Schemelia +1-609-468-9325 [email protected] SOURCE BridGene Biosciences