Recently, CRO (Contract Research Organization) Elixir Clinical Research announced its Series A of $52 million. This round of financing was jointly invested by global healthcare investment firm LYFE Capital, Sinovation Ventures, and Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Ltd.
“Sinovation Ventures has been actively exploring investment opportunities that can leverage AI to empower and disrupt the biotech ecosystem. The lengthy and expensive process of clinical trials is a major bottleneck in drug development. Tech-driven digital CROs may largely increase the efficiency in trial participant recruitment, reduce repetitive work for researchers, and enhance the overall accuracy and comprehensiveness of clinical data. After the pandemic outbreak, tech-based clinical CROs are able to speed up their growth with the support of massive capital inflows into the sector. Patient-centered CROs and DCTs (decentralized clinical trials) will become a quintessential trend in the industry development. ” said Peter Wu, Partner at Sinovation Ventures.
In recent years, China’s life science industry has developed rapidly, and the CRO services have also attracted great attention. Compared with the traditional CRO operation model, Elixir Clinical Research, as a high-tech full-function clinical CRO company, commits itself to improving the efficiency of clinical research management and operation with digital technology, focuses on the innovative service capability in the whole process of clinical trials, and strictly follows international standards to provide high-quality and efficient solutions for pharmaceutical and mechanical enterprises, thus accelerating the commercialization process, helping new drugs to be available faster, and benefiting patients all over the world.
Elixir Clinical Research provides holistic CRO services spanning the whole lifecycle from BE to I-IV and post-marketing, ranging from drug registration, regulatory affairs, medical program design, and project operations to quality audit, data management, and analysis, post-marketing study, and real-world study. Through the continuous combination of industry capabilities with AI and big data to form a unique collaboration IT platform, the whole process of a data-driven new clinical research model will enable more efficient, more transparent clinical project quality control. It will also help achieve lower-cost collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders. This will significantly improve the quality and output efficiency of drug development, fulfill the unmet medical needs of patients and expedite high-quality drugs availability to the market.
Mr. WU Kai, Partner of Sinovation Ventures leading the healthcare investment vertical, believes that the executive team of Elixir Clinical Research has extensive experience in traditional CRO and an in-depth understanding of big data, AI, and cloud computing. “We firmly believe that with Elixir Clinical Research’s strength, combined with the empowerment of Sinovation Ventures and other investors in AI, digitalization, and internationalization, Elixir will deliver tech-enabled clinical CRO solutions to help advance drug development in China and in the world.”
Mr. XU Liedong, General Manager of Elixir Clinical Research, said: “The progress of the life science industry is related to the national health, and the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought the pharmaceutical R&D industry to the public’s attention. At the national level, a number of policies to encourage pharmaceutical innovation will further promote the continuous progress of the CRO industry and move towards high-quality and efficient innovation. We believe that this round of financing will further enhance the information management and data mining capability of Elixir Clinical Research, continuously improve the professional service capability of the team, establish an international team and create higher value for customers.”