Zhongke Microneedle Closes Pre-A Round of Financing, Taking the Lead in Mass Production of Microneedle Products

According to lieyunwang.com, Beijing-based Zhongke Microneedle Technology Co., Ltd. ("Zhongke Microneedle"), a provider of microneedle drug delivery systems in China, has announced the completion of its Pre-A round of tens of millions yuan from Chongqing Zhongke Yinghui Fund. Proceeds of this round will be used for the R&D of pipelines and market expansion, etc.

As an industrial team from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIPC-CAS), the core product of Zhongke Microneedle is the array microneedle patch, which can penetrate the cuticle painlessly, through the transdermal route, and realize the transdermal delivery of active ingredients. It is based on a disruptive technology in the pharmaceutical field that has the advantages of traditional injection and transdermal drug delivery.

Microneedle drug delivery has become a new hot research topic. The related technology is a new form for minimally invasive drug delivery on the skin, with the advantages of controllable skin penetration depth, flexible microneedle, and controllable dissolution time, etc. It breaks the technical limitations and the disadvantages of traditional transdermal preparations, especially in biological drugs, cosmetics, external drugs, chemical drugs, and Chinese medicine extracts.

Founded in May 2018, Zhongke Microneedle completed its first round of financing of 20 million yuan in October 2018. The company is a research achievement transformation base of TIPC-CAS. It has established a polymer microneedle drug delivery technology R&D platform and a GMP-compliant pilot production platform, mainly engaged in the R&D of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetics and related equipment based on microneedle drug delivery technology. 

Zhongke Microneedle is the first domestic firm dedicated to internationally advanced and first-class microneedle preparation R&D services. It aims to provide advanced microneedle transdermal drug delivery solutions for pharmaceutical companies and the medical beauty sector.

Zhongke Microneedle set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Chongqing in October 2019. Most of the proceeds will be used for the construction of four production lines in Chongqing, by which time the production capacity of the subsidiary will reach 200 million microneedle patches per year.