Recently, Elixir Clinical Research Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Elixir Clinical Research”) announced that it has completed A round financing worth of $52 million. This round of financing was jointly invested by LYFE Capital, Sinovation Ventures and Chow Tai Fook

In recent years, China's life science industry has been developing rapidly, and the CRO industry has received a lot of attention from all walks of life. Compared with traditional CRO operation model, Elixir Clinical Research, a technology-enabled full service CRO, is committed to improving the management and operation of clinical study with digital technology, focusing on the innovation impetus of the whole process of the clinical trial, strictly following international standards, and providing pharmaceutical and medical device companies with high-quality and efficient first-class services, with the aim to accelerate the commercialization process, facilitate the launching of new drugs and benefit patients all over the world.

Elixir Clinical Research provides fully functional clinical research services, including registration and regulatory affairs, medical protocol design and monitoring, project management and operation, data management and statistical analysis, post-marketing studies and real-world studies, covering the entire life cycle from BE to Phase I-IV and post-marketing Through the continuous integration and development of industry resources and practical experience with artificial intelligence and big data platform, a unique multi-party informatization cooperation and whole-process data-driven new clinical research model has been established, which can realize the quality controllability, efficiency improvement, cost reduction and information transparency of clinical projects, so as to significantly improve the quality of drug R&D and the efficiency of deliverables, fulfill the unmet medical needs of patients, and make good drugs accessible.

Mr. Liedong Xu, General Manager of Elixir Clinical Research said:

“The progress of the life science industry is related to national health; and the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought high attention from all walks of life to the pharmaceutical R&D industry. At the national level, multiple important policies that encourage medical innovations, will further advance the continuous progress in CRO industry and achieve high-quality and high-efficacy innovative development. I believe that this round of financing will further enhance Elixir’s clinical informatization management level and data value mining ability, enhance the team's professional service ability and establish an international service team to create higher value for clients.”

Long Chen, Managing Director of LYFE Capital, said:

“Elixir Clinical Research is a leading technology-enabled clinical CRO in China. With years of experience and industry resources in clinical trial management, it can effectively realize seamless data connection among clinical trial sponsors, hospitals, CROs, SMOs, regulatory authorities and other parties, which can truly reduce labor costs, improve clinical trial efficiency and accelerate the progress of clinical trials.   Under the leadership of the company’s management team, Elixir Clinical Research team has acquired the first-class integrated “IT+CRO” capability, which gives Elixir Clinical Research a significant leading advantage in innovative approaches such as digitally driven registrational clinical trials, real-world studies and decentralized clinical trials. LYFE Capital will use the resources within the LYFE ecosystem in China and the U.S. to work with Elixir Clinical Research to build a comprehensively leading digital technology-enabled clinical CRO.”

Kai Wu, partner of Sinovation Ventures, said:

“Sinovation Ventures has been actively exploring artificial intelligence to empower and reshape the biopharmaceutical industry, and the time-consuming and expensive clinical trial process is a huge bottleneck in drug development. Technology-driven digital CROs can greatly improve the efficiency of subject recruitment, reduce repetitive work of investigators and improve data comprehensiveness and accuracy. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital CROs around the world have received significant funding and achieved rapid growth, especially with patient-centered concepts and decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) becoming a major trend in the industry.

The core senior executive team of Elixir Clinical Research has both rich experience in the traditional clinical trial CRO industry and a deep understanding of the combination of technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. We firmly believe that with Elixir Clinical Research’s own strengths, together with comprehensive empowerment of Sinovation and other investors in areas such as artificial intelligence and digitalization, as well as the international market, the company will grow into a leading technology-enabled clinical CRO in China and even in the world.”

Kar Chung Lee, head of corporate investment in healthcare sector at Chow Tai Fook, said:

“As the pace of new drug development in China continues to accelerate, how to effectively improve its efficiency through technological empowerment has become the industry’s key to success. As a service provider empowering new drug development, digital CROs are achieving disruptive innovation through the clinical trial system jointly formed by various digital tools, greatly improving the accessibility and accuracy of clinical trials and accelerating the overall process of new drug development in China. With a solid medical data foundation and rich accumulation in China's pharmaceutical industry, Elixir Clinical Research has the prerequisites to achieve industry breakthroughs from its founding team to its business ecology. It adheres to such a development direction of providing accessible and high-quality medical service solutions that is highly compatible with Chow Tai Fook's corporate investment philosophy in the medical field. I believe that it will be able to rapidly occupy the market in the CRO industry.”

About Elixir Clinical Research

Rooted in China, serving the world, Elixir Clinical Research Co., Ltd. is a professional technology-enabled full service CRO. With the mission of “making good drugs accessible”, it provides pharmaceutical companies with high-quality and effective clinical research solutions to facilitate the launching of new drugs.

Business covers BE, Phase I-IV clinical trials, real-world studies, and eventual registration application and filing. With many years of practical experience in the informatization operation and management of clinical research and continuous development and integration of industrial resources, Elixir Clinical Research has established a unique new type of clinical research model: with informatization operation and management of projects, files, personnel, data, adverse reactions, etc., it has laid a solid foundation for the high-quality development of clinical study projects. Elixir Clinical Research continues to maintain communication among clinical research institutions, third-party partners and regulatory authorities and by connecting all relevant parties involved in clinical studies, it has established an efficient, transparent and collaborative project operation mechanism.

About LYFE Capital

LYFE Capital is a specialized fund for the healthcare industry with global coverage. We work with outstanding medical companies at all stages of development with rapid growth potential, providing them with financial support to facilitate rapid growth and enable them to maximize their potential in a rapidly changing market environment. With LYFE's own deep knowledge of the medical industry and professional and rich investment experience, we are able to flexibly adjust our investment strategy to adapt to the urgent needs of each portfolio company. Our professional team and international perspective allow us to cover global markets and achieve smooth and unhindered international cooperation through value creation.

About Sinovation Ventures

Founded in September 2009 by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, Sinovation Ventures is a venture capital firm that aims to help young Chinese entrepreneurs build world-class companies with a full range of entrepreneurial services. It manages five USD and five RMB funds, and supervises total assets of approximately RMB 20 billion yuan, with headquarters in Beijing and branches in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing and Shenzhen. Over the years, Sinovation Ventures has rapidly grown into one of the most influential technology-based venture capital institutions in China with its professional and international characteristics and advantages. It pioneered the “technology investment + artificial intelligence” model and established the AI Institute in September 2016, with Dr. Kai-Fu Lee as its president, to comprehensively promote a series of work in the field of artificial intelligence, such as talent training, incubation of entrepreneurial projects, open ecosystem construction, scientific research and industry connection.

As the top international service-oriented venture capital firm, Sinovation Ventures focuses on such industries as artificial intelligence and hard technology, robotics and automation, chips/semiconductors, enterprise service software, and medical technology, with a high priority on investing in early to mid-stage high-growth technology companies. The total number of projects in which it has invested so far is about 400, among which there are more than 20 unicorns. Well-known investment projects in the past years include: Zhihu, Megvii, 4Paradigm, Momenta, Weride, Waterdrop, Moji, Uisee, BroadLink, XYLink, Zaijia, Meditrust Health, Zeesan Biotech, Insilico Medicine, Vedeng, MEGAROBO, XAG etc.

About Chow Tai Fook

Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited (hereinafter referred to as “CTFE”) is the flagship private investment holding company of the Cheng Family who is the controlling shareholder of the Chow Tai Fook Jewelery Group Limited founded in 1929, one of the world's leading jewelery retailers with approximately US$7.3 billion revenue in the fiscal year ended in March 2020.

The Cheng Family’s businesses focus on jewelry, property development, hospitality services, infrastructure, aircraft leasing, energy, healthcare, education, technology, environmental services, retail and media sectors. As of June 2020, the Cheng Family had held controlling or significant interests in 14 listed companies on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong with a total asset of approximately US$90 billion.

CTFE seeks to deliver sustainable growth through professional investment and upholding relationship driven philosophy of family-owned businesses. CTFE is a premier family investor with strategic investments in energy, aircraft leasing, healthcare, education and media; marquee investments in prime real estate and hospitality services; private equity investments in quality growth companies mainly in technology sector and a liquid portfolio of equities and bonds. CTFE is also the largest shareholder of New World Development Company Limited (NWD) (Hong Kong stock code: 0017), a constituent stock of the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index with assets of over US$77 billion as of June 2020. CTFE, together with its subsidiaries and jointly controlled entities, has operations in 28 countries around the world.