November 30, 2016, Shanghai -- dMed Company Limited announced that it has completed its first-round financing of $8 million. Qiming Venture Capital is the lead investor; other investors include Tairui Investment, ZAI Laboratory, etc.
dMed announced that the fund will be used to expedite the expansion of its current team. dMed will continue to attract high-caliber professionals who have expertise in original innovative drug development, such as clinical scientists, clinical pharmacologists, biostatisticians, drug safety and risk management experts, as well as regulatory scientists for global and local product registration. dMed will form a consulting team that can provide scientific and strategic advice to innovative biopharmaceutical companies in China. To effectively leverage the wealth of valuable experience accumulated from around the world to benefit biopharmaceutical innovation in China, dMed plans to gather a group of world-class drug developers through a global advisory consortium. In addition, dMed will continue to recruit Quality Assurance and Clinical Operations professionals to join the company.
dMed was founded in August of 2016. It has since quickly attracted outstanding clinical development talents to join. Even prior to its establishment, clients were already eagerly waiting for its services. In the last four months, dMed has gained the trust of many innovative biopharmaceutical companies. Hence, it has been involved in some of the most critical projects of these companies, such as ZAI Laboratory’s PARP inhibitor for ovarian cancer and HUA Medicine’s GKA for diabetes. The company has started to provide services to several multinational biopharmaceutical companies as well. dMed received a warm welcome and strong support from officials of Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park and Zhangjiang Group in Pudong New District. Its Zhangjiang office will open for business this week.
The core asset of dMed is its team. Members have extensive experience in innovative drug development locally and globally, as well as strong leadership. dMed’s founder, Dr. Lingshi Tan, was also the founder and General Manager of Pfizer’s Global R&D Center in China. Under his leadership, within 11 years, the center grew into a large R&D organization of over 1000 professionals. The center served as a global platform that cultivated many successful talents in China for innovative drug development. Early this year, Dr. Tan retired from Pfizer after working there for twenty years. Dr. Tan explained that the reason he was anxious to retire from the post was that he hoped to do something for drug innovation in a broader scope. “China biopharmaceutical has entered into a historic turning point. Innovation has become the inevitable trend of this evolving industry. Many R&D based biopharmaceutical companies have advanced their innovative products into the clinical development stage. However, this is the stage at which they may face bottlenecks. There is a serious shortage of clinical talents who weathered through entire clinical development for innovative drugs. This is where dMed is aspired to make a difference. We will help Chinese innovative drug developers ensure quality and standards in every aspect of clinical development and help them go global. Innovative products rely on scientific rigor to achieve key research milestones one after the other until they finally reach the clinical trial stage. At that point, there are only more reasons to be cautious. It would be an unbearable shame if a potential medicine failed at this stage because of poor study design or careless execution. What dMed wants to do is to maintain scientific rigor all the way until these drugs reach doctors and patients. We will rally a group of clinical development veterans to safeguard biopharmaceutical innovation in China.” Regarding financing, Dr. Tan mentioned that in the recent years, he has encountered many innovative companies and their investors seeking for help. “We sensed a great urgency to grow dMed. This round of financing came just in time. It enables dMed to speed up its growth and scale up. We feel privileged to have strong investors like Qiming (V) and innovative companies like ZAI Laboratory that entrust dMed with their projects (I). We are confident to be the CRO partner for drug innovation (C). We hope to put into practice a collaboration model (VIC) that benefits patients in China and around the world.”
Nisa Leung, Qiming’s Managing Partner stated: “dMed is a fast-growing innovative service company in biopharmaceutical clinical development in China. Established by a group of people with profound global R&D experience, this company has the potential to become an international brand for providing drug innovation services and solutions. By leveraging his industry insights, superior leadership, and practical experience in global and local R&D, Dr. Tan is uniquely positioned to lead this top-level team.
Dr. Xiaping Ye, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Tigermed, the leading Clinical CRO in China, noted: “I’ve been encouraging Dr. Tan to start his own business for several years. Now I’m so glad to see the start-up. Undoubtedly, dMed will become a very strong new force in the CRO business. I look forward to our collaboration in supporting innovative biopharmaceutical companies. Our recent collaboration on HUA’s project is a very good start.”
Dr. Samantha Du, Founder and CEO of ZAI Laboratory said: “Since its establishment, we are the first client collaborating with dMed. Already, dMed has become a key partner for ZAI. ZAI’s strategic investment in dMed is due to the group’s international high standard and expertise. This is dMed’s core competitive advantage—the edge that will help them stand out in the market. I expect ZAI will continue to cooperate with dMed and establish long term sustainable strategic collaboration between the two companies. “
About dMed
dMed Company Limited is a clinical Contract Research Organization (CRO), providing high-end services to innovative biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. dMed is committed to increasing the probability of success of R&D products. Its services include scientific, strategic, regulatory and quality assurance related consultation for clinical development and product registration; clinical trial design and execution; clinical data management, statistical analysis, medical writing; pharmacovigilance and risk management; and clinical trial quality system and assurance .【Contact Information: Yingshi.Qian@dmedglobal.com Business Phone: +86-21-5090 0085】
About Qiming
Founded in 2006, Qiming is a leading China venture capital firm with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Hong Kong. Qiming currently manages five US Dollar funds and four RMB funds with US$2.7 billion assets under management.
Qiming strives to be the investor of choice for top entrepreneurs in China. Since our debut, we have backed over 160 young, fast-growing and innovative companies across China in the internet and consumer ("Intersumer"), healthcare, information technology and clean technology sectors. Over 30 of them are already listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEx, Gretai Securities Market, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange or achieved exit through M&A. Many of our portfolio companies are today’s most influential brands in their respective sectors, including Xiaomi, Dianping, iTutorGroup, Mogujie, Meitu, Bilibili, Tigermed, Gan & Lee, Zai Lab, We Doctor Group, HyperStrong, Face++ and UBTech. Qiming consistently ranks among the top venture firms in terms of returns to its investors.
