Introduced three new Chinese drugs, EQRx was valued at 3.6 billion U.S. dollars, and the cornerstone PD-L1 contributed 75%!

EQRx, a biopharmaceutical company that aims to alleviate the problem of excessive drug prices by discovering new drugs at low cost and selling them at lower prices, recently announced that it will be listed in the fourth quarter of this year

Established in early 2020, EQRx, with its unique business model, completed a US$200 million Series A financing plan shortly after its establishment

The drugs currently developed by EQRx are called homogeneous drugs, which refer to the development of existing drugs or drugs that are about to be marketed, and the use of existing disease biological targets to redesign existing drugs

According to Melanie Nallicheri, President and Chief Operating Officer of EQRx, the current conservative valuation is mainly supported by the two pipelines that have the fastest registration progress and are close to the US market approval-CStone's macromolecule suglimumab and Hausen In the industry, the small molecule Ametinib, among which the single-item valuation of suglimumab accounts for three-quarters of the overall valuation of EQRx, or US$2.

What's interesting is that the single-project valuation of sugarizumab worth US$2.

01 Two license-outs prop up the product pipeline

EQRx is familiar in China because of license-out transactions with two well-known domestic pharmaceutical companies

At present, EQRx is establishing a pipeline of important new drug candidates with important competitiveness to deal with diseases such as cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Introducing innovative drug pipelines from China's leading pharmaceutical companies and promoting their clinical development in the United States is one of the ways for EQRx to achieve low price and high quality

In July last year, Hansen Pharmaceuticals announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hausen Pharmaceuticals, had entered into a strategic cooperation and licensing agreement with EQRx, granting EQRx an exclusive license to develop, produce and commercialize the former third-generation EGFR- outside China.

Ametinib is Hausen’s core product.

In October of the same year, CStone Pharmaceuticals reached a strategic cooperation with EQRx.

These two license-out transactions are currently the two pipelines with the fastest registration progress and are close to the US listing approval

Public information shows that as a potential best-in-class PD-L1 antibody, sugarizumab has become the world's first immunotherapy drug that covers the entire population of stage III and stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at the same time.

At present, sugarizumab is also being developed for multiple high-incidence cancer indications such as gastric cancer and esophageal cancer.

02 Low-cost high-quality model

"In the next ten years, homogeneous drugs can be developed on the basis of 50 different therapies, and the first drug can be marketed within five years, and the development of 10 drugs can be completed within ten years

From the perspective of the industry, the reason why EQRx has been favored by capital since its establishment in early 2020 is related to its business model and strategy

EQRx provides patients and medical systems around the world with new drugs for the treatment of life-threatening and chronic diseases at a fraction of the cost of today's leading therapies
.
On the one hand, EQRx is committed to developing important innovative drugs on mature targets, with high efficiency, low cost, and high success rate as the clinical development goals.
On the other hand, it strengthens new partnerships with leading payers and healthcare providers.
, The goal is to develop and manufacture affordable and high-quality new drugs for patients in the field of indications where the current treatment cost is extremely high
.

According to the information disclosed by EQRx, the company's listing model is achieved by merging with a listed special purpose company, which was jointly established by an affiliate of Casdin Capital, LLC and Corvex Management LP
.
This listing method is exactly the SPAC listing method that has swept the US stock market in recent years
.
Through this transaction, EQRx originally planned to obtain 1.
2 billion US dollars in cash injection, but due to the hot subscription, the financing amount has reached 1.
8 billion US dollars
.

The company’s CEO Alexis Borisy revealed that EQRx will focus on the development of small molecule drugs, biological products or antibody drugs, with emphasis on the treatment of cancer, immune inflammatory diseases, and non-rare genetic diseases, and will not be involved in innovation for the time being Development of cell or gene therapy
.