Kailan Pharma Closes Oversubscribed Series A Financing of Over 100 Million RMB to Advance Innovative Drug Development in Cholesterol Metabolism

Cholesgen (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. ("Cholesgen") recently completed an oversubscribed Series A financing round exceeding RMB 100 million, led by Gaorong Ventures with participation from Dawu Ventures, Nanwan BioVentures, the AstraZeneca-CICC Healthcare Industrial Fund, and SANY Innovation Investment. The company will use the proceeds to accelerate its core innovative drug pipeline into clinical trials, expand its R&D team, pursue external partnerships, and scale up its office and laboratory space.

Founded in 2021 in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Cholesgen is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing first-in-class therapeutics. The company focuses on novel disease targets with genuine first-in-class potential, building its pipeline on disease biology, medicinal chemistry, and translational medicine to address metabolic diseases — including hyperlipidemia, obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and NASH — as well as oncology.

Since its inception, Cholesgen has assembled a highly efficient drug discovery team that includes scientific leaders with deep academic credentials — notably academic advisor Baoliang Song, an internationally recognized expert in glycolipid metabolism with over two decades in the field whose research has been incorporated into advanced textbooks and published extensively in top-tier journals including Nature, Science, and Cell — alongside seasoned R&D professionals with extensive experience at leading domestic and international pharmaceutical companies. The team has also established multiple platform capabilities spanning biochemical and cell-based drug screening, drug design and medicinal chemistry, structural biology, metabolic disease animal models, and human genetics analysis, while forging partnerships with several top-tier CROs and renowned domestic universities — laying a solid foundation for rapid pipeline advancement.

"We are grateful to our investors for their recognition and support of Cholesgen," the company stated. "We have already built a robust R&D pipeline with multiple programs targeting genuinely innovative first-in-class targets, two of which are approaching the preclinical candidate (PCC) stage. Going forward, we will leverage our competitive advantages in scientific originality, deep research foundations, solid human genetics expertise, and a professional R&D team to advance cholesterol metabolism research and accelerate innovative drug development for metabolic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and oncology."

"Gaorong Ventures has always focused on healthcare companies with truly global innovation capabilities and innovative drug developers addressing critical unmet needs," said Kun Yang, Partner at Gaorong Ventures. "Metabolic diseases and cancer are major threats to human health. From day one, Cholesgen has been committed to building a differentiated and innovative pipeline — around novel targets, with a team possessing original scientific strength, and on a self-built R&D platform — demonstrating tremendous potential for developing innovative drugs from the source."