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dMed, a Collaborative Shanghai CRO Consulting Startup, Lands $8 Million

publication date: Nov 30, 2016
 | 
author/source: Richard Daverman, PhD

dMed Company Limited, a Shanghai CRO specialist founded in August, closed an $8 million first-round financing. Qiming Venture Capital was the lead investor joined by Tairui Investment, ZAI Laboratory and others. ZAI has enlisted dMed as an advisor for China clinical trials of its PARP program. dMed was founded by Dr. Lingshi Tan, who also set up Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) China R&D center. After 20 years at Pfizer, Dr. Tan said he wanted to work on a larger scale to aid China drug development. It would be a shame, he said, if a China innovative drug development program failed because the clinical trials were poorly structured or carelessly carried out.

dMed will work as a consulting team using a collaborative model to provide scientific and strategic advice to innovative biopharmaceutical companies in China, including global trials. It expects to build on the great wealth of valuable experience from around the world and use the knowledge to further biopharmaceutical innovation in China. dMed plans to build a global consortium that gathers a group of world-class drug developers. dMed will also recruit Quality Assurance and Clinical Operations professionals to join the company.

Dr. Tan was the founder and General Manager of Pfizer’s Global R&D Center in China. In 11 years, the center grew into a large organization of over 1000 professionals. As a platform, the Pfizer center cultivated many talented people in China for innovative drug development. Dr. Tan retired from Pfizer earlier this year.

dMed said its new capital will be used to expand its current team. The company expects to hire experienced professionals with expertise in novel drug development, such as clinical scientists, clinical pharmacologists, biostatisticians, drug safety and risk management experts, as well as regulatory scientists for global and local product registration.

According to dMed, clients were ready to sign up for its services, even before it opened its doors. The company has already offered assistance to HUA Medicine for its GKA treatment for diabetes, in addition to consulting with ZAI Lab for its PARP inhibitor. The company has also started to provide services to several multinational biopharmas.

dMed said it would open its offices in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park this week.

Dr. Tan said in a statement,  “China biopharmaceutical has entered into a historic turning point. Innovation has become the inevitable trend of this evolving industry. Many R&D-based biopharmaceutical companies have advanced their innovative products into the clinical development stage. However, this is the stage at which they may face bottlenecks. There is a serious shortage of clinical talents who have weathered through the entire clinical development process for innovative drugs. This is where dMed [hopes] to make a difference. We will help Chinese innovative drug developers ensure quality and standards in every aspect of clinical development and help them go global."

He continued, "Innovative products rely on scientific rigor to achieve key research milestones one after the other until they finally reach the clinical trial stage. At that point, there are only more reasons to be cautious. It would be an unbearable shame if a potential medicine failed at this stage because of poor study design or careless execution. What dMed wants to do is to maintain scientific rigor all the way until these drugs reach doctors and patients.”

Nisa Leung, Qiming’s Managing Partner stated: “dMed is a fast-growing innovative service company in biopharmaceutical clinical development in China. Established by a group of people with profound global R&D experience, this company has the potential to become an international brand for providing drug innovation services and solutions."

Dr. Xiaping Ye, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Tigermed, the leading Clinical CRO in China, noted: “I’ve been encouraging Dr. Tan to start his own business for several years. Now I’m so glad to see the start-up. Undoubtedly, dMed will become a very strong new force in the CRO business. I look forward to our collaboration in supporting innovative biopharmaceutical companies. Our recent collaboration on HUA’s project is a very good start.”

Dr. Samantha Du, Founder and CEO of ZAI Laboratory, added: “Since its establishment, we are the first client collaborating with dMed. Already, dMed has become a key partner for ZAI. ZAI’s strategic investment in dMed is due to the group’s international high standard and expertise. This is dMed’s core competitive advantage—the edge that will help them stand out in the market. I expect ZAI will continue to cooperate with dMed and establish long term sustainable strategic collaboration between the two companies. “

dMed's list of service offerings include scientific, strategic, regulatory and quality assurance related consultation for clinical development and product registration; clinical trial design and execution; clinical data management, statistical analysis, medical writing; pharmacovigilance and risk management; and clinical trial quality system and assurance.

Disclosure: none.


 

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