Publish Time: 2022-12-14 Origin: 迪飞医学
Recently, Difei Medical Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Difei Medical') announced the completion of tens of millions of RMB A+ round of financing. This round of financing was invested by Ruiyoukang Fund, a subsidiary of Jiangbei Science and Technology Investment Group. It is used for Difei medical technology research and development, product registration and clinical cooperation promotion, etc.
Founded in 2018, Difei Medical was conceived and incubated by Shihe Gene, a leader in the field of tumor precision medicine in China. It is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the development and service of clinical molecular detection technology for pathogenic microorganisms.The company's headquarters is located in Jiangbei New District, a national-level new area. It has a R&D and commercial operation team of more than 100 people from top universities at home and abroad and multidisciplinary.
Following prenatal screening and precise diagnosis of tumors, technological advances in high-throughput sequencing and liquid biopsy have promoted the vigorous development of the field of pathogenic microorganisms.This technology has the advantages of not relying on culture, directly acting on clinical samples, unbiased detection, and being able to discover rare and new pathogens; it also shows great potential in the detection of drug resistance.Based on the prospect of detection technology and the promotion of the new crown epidemic, more and more clinical institutions at home and abroad have begun to pay attention to the advantages of metagenomic pathogenic microorganism detection (mNGS) in the comprehensive diagnosis of infectious diseases.At present, a number of expert consensuses have recommended mNGS technology for pathogen identification. The application scenarios include respiratory tract infection, blood system infection, and central nervous system infection.mNGS technology can break through the limitation of clinically difficult cultivation of a large number of pathogens, directly detect the nucleic acid sequence of pathogens in clinical samples to identify species, and play an indispensable role in the identification of new or sudden infections, complex or mixed infections, and rare pathogens , has great potential in solving the problem of clinical antibiotic misuse.
Technological innovation, leading the field of pathogenic microorganism detection
For a long time, Jiangbei New District has focused on the construction of 'Gene City', relying on innovation carriers, building innovation platforms, integrating innovation resources, laying out the entire industrial chain of new medicine and life and health, and aiming to build a 100 billion-level life and health industry cluster.In this context, Shihe Gene, an enterprise in the New Area, rapidly grew into a unicorn enterprise and successfully incubated Difei Medicine.
In Jiangbei New District, a hot spot of industry, DIPH Medical is full of vitality of scientific and technological innovation.As a pioneer in the field of accurate detection of pathogenic microorganisms in China, in 2020, Difei Medical obtained the first technical acceptance certificate for the clinical gene detection project of infectious pathogens (conventional PCR method and high-throughput sequencing method) issued by the provincial clinical testing center in the country. At the same time, it has passed the mNGS microbial external quality assessment of the National Clinical Inspection Center and the Chinese Academy of Inspection for many times.
Difei Medical adopts a development model that combines services and products, and has established cooperation with more than 1,500 clinical experts from more than 300 core hospitals. At the same time, it has deployed medical laboratories in multiple core areas such as Nanjing, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to comprehensively speed up the report Timeliness, to meet the core clinical needs.In addition, Difei Medical has accumulated a wealth of clinical data, providing a clear direction for the follow-up company's research and development.
Take on the hard core and build a solid line of defense against the epidemic with scientific and technological power
The outbreak and epidemic of COVID-19 has brought severe challenges to the world economy and human health.Compared with traditional clinical microbiological diagnostic techniques, metagenomic technology has comprehensive advantages such as comprehensive coverage, no need for pre-culture, high detection rate, and ability to detect unknown microorganisms, and is more suitable for accurate and rapid detection of pathogenic microorganisms.
Recently, the epidemic situation broke out at Nanjing Lukou Airport. In the critical stage of epidemic prevention in Jiangbei New District, full-staff testing was carried out. Difei Medical took advantage of the technical advantages of mNGS in the comprehensive diagnosis of infectious diseases, and put its own scientific and technological strength into the front line of fighting the epidemic.Prepared epidemic materials from all over the country, built a nucleic acid testing shelter laboratory of over 500 square meters in the first time, equipped with more than 100 sets of various testing equipment, and nearly 300 laboratory personnel from various departments of the company worked in shifts to ensure 24 hours a day and night, to achieve It has achieved a high-throughput operation capacity of 300,000 person-time inspections per day.After more than a month of fighting against the epidemic, Difei Medical has demonstrated its hard-core responsibility in fighting the epidemic, and has completed millions of new crown screenings in Nanjing and Yangzhou, laying a solid foundation for Nanjing to win the battle against the epidemic.
This is not the first time that Difei Medical has contributed scientific and technological strength to the fight against the epidemic. As early as the beginning of 2020, on the battlefield of fighting against the epidemic, Difei Medical has emerged in the field of nucleic acid testing. Batch designated new coronavirus testing institutions.
As the lead investor of this round, Zhu Zhiang, deputy general manager (in charge of the work) of Jiangbei New Area Science and Technology Investment Group, said:NGS technology breaks through the limitations of traditional microbial testing and shows broad application prospects in the field of pathogenic microbial testing. The investment team of Jiangbei New Area Science and Technology Investment Group has been paying attention to and optimistic about innovative technologies in this emerging field.For a long time, Difei Medical has insisted on innovation to build core competitiveness, and has been deeply involved in the field of molecular detection of pathogenic microorganisms.At the same time, Difei Medical, as an incubator of Shihe Gene, has mature experience in the clinical transformation of new medical technologies.This time, Jiangbei Science and Technology Investment Group joins hands with Difei Medical, and believes that it can support Difei Medical to continue to provide the most innovative and clinically valuable products and services, and protect the lives and health of the people.
Dr. Shao Yang, founder of Shihe Genomics Group, said:According to the statistics of WHO in 2018 and related data, about 15 million patients die from infection every year in the world, and more than 5 million patients die from infection every year in China. Critical infection has the characteristics of extremely high mortality rate and strong timeliness of detection. At present, There is a huge unmet clinical need in the field of microbiological testing.Metagenome microbial detection is a natural extension of the rapid development of detection technology in recent years. Adhering to the purpose of scientific and technological progress for people's health, after this round of financing, the company will further accelerate the development and upgrading of core technologies, product registration and market layout.