🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

BioMap runs an AI platform with government support, not a standard drugmaker

• BioMap mainly provides an AI platform for early-stage molecule discovery, rather than building its own drug pipeline 1.
• It works with nearly 1,000 customers, including multinational pharmaceutical companies, which use its large-scale AI models to search for promising molecules 1.
• A tie-up with the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), a government-owned fund, supports this approach through an investment announced in June 2024 that was later reported as leading a new funding round 1.
• For bringing drugs to market, BioMap co-founded a separate company called BioGend Science, while keeping BioMap focused on the AI platform business 1.

BioMap’s IPO filing links to Hong Kong’s biotech push and a tech split between the US and China

• BioMap’s IPO filing adds to Hong Kong’s push to build a global biotech hub.
• Since 2018, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has offered special rules for pre-revenue biotech firms, and Hong Kong ranks second worldwide for biotech IPO fundraising since those changes 2.
• Insilico Medicine completed an IPO using the HKEX Main Board’s Rule 8.05 profit test, rather than the pre-revenue Chapter 18A route 3.
• BioMap has spread its computing setup across AI chips, including options from Chinese suppliers such as Huawei, to reduce exposure to US-China tensions 1.