Suzhou SmartNuclide Biopharmaceutical Company (SmartNuclide), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing innovative biologics in BioBAY, recently announced that it has raised nearly 100 million yuan in Series C+ funding.

This round of funding was led by Oriza Holdings. Yuzhi Capital, Insight Capital, Suzhou Industrial Park Leader Venture Capital, and Realharmony Capital participated in this round. The funds raised in this round will be mainly used to commercialize the company’s first product human thyrotropin injection (rhTSH, trade name Zhishujia ®); clinical trials of innovative radiodiagnostic drugs such as SNA002; and Investigational New Drug (IND) processing of new target therapeutic nuclear drugs such as SNA014 and SNA025. This further builds on the innovative Smart series radiopharmaceuticals development platform of SmartNuclide.

Radiopharmaceuticals deliver radioisotopes directly to cancer cells for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes by precisely targeting them with antibodies, peptides, or small molecules. It has many advantages over traditional therapies, such as breaking drug resistance mechanisms and activating the immune system.

Since 2023, the rapid increase in the volume of diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals from Telix, Lantheus and other companies, as well as the therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals of Novartis, shows the continuous growth of demand for radiopharmaceuticals from doctors. Multinational companies such as Lilly, BMS and AstraZeneca have increased their investment in the field of nuclear medicine through M&A of nearly US$ 10 billion, signaling that nuclear medicine is becoming a key area in the global pharmaceutical industry. In China, local pharmaceutical companies, including Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. and Grand Pharmaceutical Group, have also begun exploring nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals are considered to have huge market potential due to their unique integrated diagnosis and treatment characteristics.

Due to the unique radiation mechanism of radiopharmaceuticals, they are extremely difficult to develop, and the drug targets in the existing market are highly concentrated and relatively small. In the face of challenges in the development of radiopharmaceuticals, SmartNuclide has created a single-domain antibody-based radiopharmaceuticals discovery, R&D and production technology platform with independent intellectual property rights. It has built a new target radiopharmaceutical development platform for the Smart series, which has significant advantages such as low blood toxicity, low renal toxicity, and high tumor uptake, which greatly improves the R&D efficiency and therapeutic potential of radiopharmaceuticals.

SmartNuclide has built the first radiopharmaceutical GMP workshop of several thousand square meters (Class B qualification) in Suzhou Industrial Park and has prospectively laid out more than 10 innovative nuclide diagnosis and treatment product pipelines. Several of its innovative tumor-targeting radioactive developing drugs have entered the clinical trials. And its new targeting radiotherapeutic drugs have obtained potential molecules, and are about to launch clinical trials. At the same time, the first human thyroid-stimulating hormone injection (Zhishujia ®) for radioactive iodine treatment of thyroid cancer in China will soon be approved for marketing, which will fill the gap in treatment in China.

Dr. Tao Xu, Founder, and CEO of SmartNuclide, said: “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to new and existing investors and partners for their unwavering support and recognition of SmartNuclide, which enabled us to complete this round of funding in the context of the cold winter of the industry. We will continue with our original intention and continue to increase our efforts in the field of nuclear medicine.

In the future, with the support of this round of funding, SmartNuclide will increase the business prospects of Zhishujia®, and simultaneously accelerate the progress of product development and clinical trials. It is hoped that Zhishujia ® will enable us to achieve self-sufficiency. Hopefully, this will result in more funds for R&D and innovation. We will continue to bring innovative and effective diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear drugs to the market. This will definitely benefit patients at home and abroad.”

Chen Yunfei, vice-president of the Medical and Health Investment Department of Oriza Holdings, said: “In the past two years, the nuclear medicine sector has been booming. With the introduction of national regulations and policy support, industry standards have become increasingly stringent. Innovative nuclear medicine companies have also faced new challenges and opportunities. We are optimistic about the development prospects of SmartNuclide. It has focused on the field of nuclear medicine since its inception, and the nuclear medicine pipelines it has established are innovative and non-involuted molecular targets, which fully proves that the company has the strength and professionalism of independent research and development. We have been paying attention to SmartNuclide for a long time and continue to be optimistic about it. We look forward to taking this collaboration as an opportunity to support SmartNuclide and help the research and development of more innovative nuclear medicine to benefit more patients.”