5Y News | Galixir Announces Completion of Tens of Millions of USD in Funding, with Continued Backing from 5Y Capital
Breaking the Bottleneck in New Drug R&D with "AI+"
On December 29, 2020, GalaxyAI (hereinafter referred to as "GalaxyAI") announced the completion of its latest two funding rounds, totaling tens of millions of US dollars. The rounds were led by Redpoint China Ventures and 5Y Capital, with participation from Source Code Capital, BAI Capital, Gaorong Capital, and DCM. Mingyue Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for the transaction. The proceeds will be used to expand the R&D team and build professional biochemical testing laboratories, creating a closed-loop process for innovative drug generation, screening, evaluation, and testing — enabling rapid optimization and advancement of R&D projects.
Xutian Jing, Managing Director at 5Y Capital, said: "The first time I discussed AI-powered new drug R&D with Dr. Chengtai Li was on MIT's campus back in 2018. At that time, the technical validation and market prospects for AI-driven drug discovery were still highly uncertain, and the topic attracted virtually no interest in capital markets. What's gratifying is that in just over two years, this sector has gotten on track. Even more impressive is that Dr. Li has not only assembled a relatively complete entrepreneurial team within two years, but also built GalaxyAI's first-generation AI drug discovery algorithm platform — and has already validated its technical feasibility through wet-lab experiments. China's pharmaceutical market is currently undergoing a rapid transition from generic-drug dominance to innovative-drug leadership, and novel drug assets will be scarce resources for the entire industry. We look forward to seeing GalaxyAI, with AI's help, continue to deliver high-quality innovative drug assets to the sector."
In just four months, GalaxyAI completed three consecutive funding rounds. During this period, the company achieved multiple major technical breakthroughs, further extending its lead over domestic and international competitors. On one hand, GalaxyAI successfully developed drug generation and screening evaluation models targeting innovative genetic targets for difficult-to-treat disease types. On the other hand, all of its existing drug R&D pipelines have made solid progress and have successively entered in vivo and in vitro laboratory validation stages. Experimental feedback from authoritative institutions shows that GalaxyAI's proprietary drug activity evaluation module has significantly improved screening efficiency, with hit rates more than ten times higher than traditional methods. Additionally, the GalaxyAI team used its proprietary molecular design and compound optimization modules to generate multiple de novo design or optimization schemes for novel-structured molecules in a short timeframe — all of which have passed wet-lab validation. "Wet-lab results demonstrate that the GalaxyAI platform can efficiently and accurately identify novel molecules with better activity than benchmark drugs and greater patent space. This makes it possible for us to rapidly advance multiple R&D pipelines," said Dr. Chengtai Li, Founder and CEO of GalaxyAI.
Founded in 2019, GalaxyAI is dedicated to applying cutting-edge artificial intelligence to preclinical drug R&D. Its self-developed AI drug discovery platform aims to help drug R&D scientists substantially reduce the time and cost of drug development while providing comprehensive patent protection coverage for developed drugs.
The company's Founder and CEO, Dr. Chengtai Li, graduated from Tsinghua University's Yao Class and holds a PhD in Computer Science from MIT. He is among the top scholars in the AI + chemistry interdisciplinary field. GalaxyAI's rapidly growing team comprises professionals with multidisciplinary backgrounds: core members come from leading internet companies, multinational pharmaceutical firms, and drug research institutions. Team members have experience leading new drug projects approved by the FDA, and have pioneered and optimized multiple AI models for drug discovery. Currently, GalaxyAI's research team continues to explore frontier technologies at the intersection of AI and drug R&D: this year alone, the team has co-authored several papers published in top-tier conferences and journals in collaboration with leading domestic and international universities and research institutes.
The "AI drug discovery" sector where GalaxyAI operates has been one of the most promising sub-fields in the broader "AI+" landscape in recent years. Generally speaking, drug R&D comprises four stages: drug discovery, preclinical research, clinical research, and approval & commercialization.
The core competitive battleground in the AI drug discovery sector is pipeline depth — the further a drug pipeline advances, the greater its value. GalaxyAI holds a leading position in this race. Its technical capabilities are built on sophisticated AI models that fully integrate computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry dimensions. Through various tools, the company has constructed a comprehensive automated system covering the entire journey from hit compounds to preclinical candidates.
GalaxyAI has developed multiple proprietary algorithms and established a series of deep learning models for drug target discovery, candidate compound generation, compound structure optimization, druggability and toxicity prediction, and patent analysis. In just over a year since its founding, GalaxyAI has integrated hundreds of models and developed optimized drug discovery workflows targeting cancer, metabolic diseases, and immune-related diseases — gradually building competitive moats in the AI + new drug R&D sector. Comparative analyses show that GalaxyAI's self-developed models and algorithms have achieved best-in-class results across multiple stages, dramatically shortening R&D timelines and costs — directly addressing the "high investment, long cycle" challenge that drug R&D companies worldwide commonly face.
On the commercialization front, GalaxyAI has established multiple efficient project teams capable of simultaneously conducting multiple early-stage drug discovery programs. The company has already signed strategic cooperation agreements with several renowned domestic and international universities and pharmaceutical companies, ensuring smooth upstream innovation and downstream testing for innovative drug discovery and development.
5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital) currently manages approximately US$3 billion across USD and RMB dual-currency funds. We believe that if the you whom others consider crazy starts to be believed in, the world becomes a better place.
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