Chuangyebang was informed that recently, Changsha Medico Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Medical” or “the company”) announced that the company completed tens of millions of yuan in A+ round of financing in April this year. This round of financing was led by Shanlan Capital, followed by Haichuang’s parent fund, and Changhai Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor for this round of financing. The funds raised in this round will be mainly used for the construction of R&D and production bases, the development of more new products in the medical/life science field, and sales in overseas markets. At present, the company has officially started the preparatory work for the B round of financing.
Although the reaction principles and experimental procedures of different IVD and life science experiments are complex and diverse, they all have one feature in common—they need to go through physical pretreatment processes such as sampling, dispensing, vibration, and standing. In today’s increasingly high requirements for detection speed and detection throughput, in addition to the iteration of core instruments, the automation of IVD and life science instruments has also become an important proposition restricting the development of the entire industry.
Taking the COVID-19 detection scenario as an example, as various places increase their efforts to deploy various PCR machines, the detection equipment itself is no longer a restrictive factor. The more important difficulty lies in how to quickly mix, open the lid, pipette and other physical processes after sampling. In the process of automation operation, the demand for automation is becoming more and more prominent. However, at present, the coverage rate of automated testing equipment in my country is less than 10%. In the field of molecular nucleic acid alone, the gap of automated equipment is as high as 200,000 units, and the potential market space is huge.
In addition to the new crown, blood screening, biological cold chain, chemiluminescence, mass spectrometry, molecular methylation… The application scenarios of life science automation are broad, and the potential market is as high as 100 billion. With the support of automation, downstream enterprises can provide customers with more accurate, efficient, labor-saving, and anti-pollution solutions, which are used in various application scenarios such as clinical, pharmaceutical companies, CRO, disease control, blood stations, plasma stations, and customs. Pretty rigid application.
Founded in 2016, Medico has always adhered to the vision of laboratory automation, informatization and intelligence, and is committed to building the most leading platform-based enterprise focusing on automation in the field of life sciences.
In the eyes of some laymen, the automation industry is more like the traditional manufacturing industry. The main production process is to assemble incoming materials. Under this model, the overall gross profit margin is not high, and the technical barriers are not large, making it difficult for enterprises to develop sustainably. Different from many other companies, Medic has adhered to the development idea of all independent original research since its establishment. Its power system, track, physical module and software algorithm are completely independently developed, thus standing out in the relatively fiercely competitive automation industry.
In addition to the advantages of excellent performance and controllable cost of independent hardware and software, the more important feature is that rapid product upgrades and iterations can be carried out according to different customers and different application scenarios. Modular Design” concept. The so-called modular design means that when designing and manufacturing, each functional module is independently split, and customized “building block” splicing is carried out according to customer needs, so as to achieve high-speed development iteration at low cost.
In this anti-epidemic process, the advantages of “modular design” have been fully reflected: the requirements for nucleic acid detection range from single-tube automatic extraction, to five-to-one, ten-to-one, to twenty-to-one + fully automated extraction , the demand is constantly changing, Medico has been able to firmly seize the opportunity of this new crown, always launch the latest solutions, and become the core supplier of many leading IVD companies in China.
As of the first half of this year, the company has achieved the largest market share of nucleic acid automatic extraction series products (including cup-dispensing system, nucleic acid automatic extraction instrument, and nucleic acid automatic workstation). In China, the company has completed the coverage of more than 30 provinces and cities across the country, and provides an overall solution of instruments + consumables, providing a variety of choices for large B-end enterprises, hospitals/disease control systems and distributors; overseas, the company Online/offline sales channels and after-sales systems have been established, with good sales in Southeast Asia, Europe, America, and South America.
Medico has experienced technical, R&D and sales teams, which provide strong support for the closed loop of the company’s products from R&D to sales. The founder and chairman Wang Peng has been focusing on the field of life science automation for 23 years and has accumulated profound industry experience; the company’s R&D leader has 20 years of life science automation R&D experience, and is responsible for the development of China’s first-generation to third-generation nucleic acid automation Extraction equipment; the sales person in charge has been deeply involved in the medical field for more than 10 years, and has rich experience in sales development, maintenance and management. Before the epidemic, Medik had become an important supplier of blood products and immunization lines for many key IVD companies.
In the face of the opportunities brought by the new crown, Chairman Wang Peng is very clear about this, he said, “First of all, automated nucleic acid extraction is not only applied to the new crown, there is still a great demand for related PCR scenarios after the epidemic; secondly, Medic itself Nor does it rely on the new crown to make money. The new crown epidemic is only a window for Medic to show. The brand and capital effects we have accumulated during the anti-epidemic process should be invested in the iterative development of new products as soon as possible, so that the company can automatically extract nucleic acid. The first brand grows into The first brand of automation in the field of life sciences.”
At present, the company has completed the development of automated pretreatment/sample loading platforms for various platforms, and has achieved considerable and sustainable business in the fields of blood nucleic acid, blood bank cold storage, mass spectrometry pretreatment, ctDNA methylation, and biochemical immune assembly lines. In terms of non-COVID-19 business, the company has maintained a sales growth of more than 200% in recent years. The company’s smart blood bank whole-process assembly line solution can realize fully automatic warehousing, warehousing, inventory, retrieval, and testing in an ultra-low temperature environment, and has been widely used in major blood banks.
In 2022, while the company continues to be a leader in nucleic acid automation, the second and third growth curves are also unfolding. The company’s goal is to provide more convenient and simpler automation products and services for IVD and life science manufacturers all over the world. The company also continues to welcome more manufacturers, talents, and investment institutions to join the team. China’s Hamilton and Tecan work hard.
Regarding this round of investment in Medico, Gu Shenghan, executive director of Shanlan Capital, said: Life science automation equipment has clear market demand in clinical diagnosis, drug research and development and other application scenarios, but due to the multi-disciplinary interdisciplinary, technical barriers are high , the high-end market is still dominated by imports.
Medic took the lead in realizing independent research and development in key links such as power system and mechanical control algorithm. Based on these underlying technical capabilities, the company has been widely recognized by leading customers in the molecular nucleic acid, blood bank blood screening and other markets, and has been displayed in other segments. trend of rapid growth. The company’s founding team has been deeply involved in the industry for many years, and has strong execution efficiency in technology research and development and commercialization. Shanlan is honored to participate in this round of financing. We expect that Shanlan’s industrial resources will help the company to bring innovative domestic solutions to more clinical and life science users in the future.
Xia Lin, director of medical investment of Haichuang FOF, said: Haichuang FOF is optimistic about the long-term development of life science automation and digitalization. Medic has been devoted to the research and development of the underlying technology of automation modules for many years, benchmarking against international excellent peers, constantly improving and iterating, with a solid accumulation of core technologies, many products have been recognized by the market, we look forward to developing more dimensions of industrial cooperation with the company .
Wang Keshu, a partner of Changhai Capital, said: I am very happy to serve a high-tech and automation company like Medik that is full of technology accumulation and has a long-term vision. Starting from the underlying technology, the company’s team has built a complete automated R&D and manufacturing system. After seizing the opportunity of the epidemic, Medico has continued to innovate and commercialize quickly in other fields. We are looking forward to the company’s future development!
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