US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will travel to the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos from 5 June to 14 June.
Insilico Medicine Raises $60 Million in Series D Financing to Advance Pipeline and Launch AI-powered Drug Discovery Robotics Laboratory
The financing comprised a mix of new investors, including a large, diversified asset management firm on the US West Coast and BHR Partners, along with current investors, including Warburg Pincus, B Capital Group, Qiming Venture Partners, BOLD Capital Partners and Pavilion Capital. Insilico’s founder and CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, also invested in the Series D round.
Capital raised in the round will further bolster Insilico’s financial position and fuel the growth of its advancing pipeline, including its lead program which is currently in a Phase I study, and continued development of its Pharma.AI platform. The proceeds will also fund ongoing global expansion and planned strategic initiatives, including a fully automated, AI-driven robotic drug discovery laboratory, and fully robotic biological data factory to complement Insilico’s vast curated data assets.
“Despite unprecedented market conditions in the biotechnology sector, we raised this Series D round from several of the most reputable US-based and global investors,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine. “It is a testament to the strength of our end-to-end AI platform, which has been validated by many partners, and produced our first novel antifibrotic program discovered using AI and aging research, and designed using our generative AI chemistry engine. This unique program completed a first-in-human Phase 0 study in healthy volunteers and has entered Phase I clinical trials. We have also nominated seven preclinical candidates across a number of other disease indications since 2021. I am very excited about this progress and have decided to personally invest in this round.”
“The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning for drug discovery has incredible potential to transform the way new therapies are developed,” said Min Fang, Managing Director, Head of China Healthcare at Warburg Pincus. “For Insilico, 2022 was a year of incredible growth and progress. They have demonstrated the value of combining deep scientific expertise with cutting-edge technology capabilities to significantly accelerate drug discovery. We’re delighted to continue to partner with the Insilico team and support a company that is at the forefront of this innovation.”
Since the previous round of financing, Insilico has developed a growing portfolio in frontier areas empowered by its proprietary AI platform. Seven programs in its internal pipeline have progressed to the IND-enabling stage, including a novel 3CL protease inhibitor for COVID-19 treatment, and two synthetic lethality programs targeting MAT2A and USP1 for oncology. It also successfully completed a Phase 0 microdose study and entered a Phase I clinical trial with its first internally developed program targeting fibrosis.
“With the power of cutting-edge AI platforms developed fully in house and validated by many global pharmaceutical companies and our innovative, highly parallel, fully distributed drug discovery model, we nominated seven preclinical candidates since I joined the company in 2021,” said Feng Ren, PhD, Insilico’s Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Global Research and Development. “I have 15 years of experience working in large pharmaceutical companies and CROs and I am impressed by the speed and quality of our discovery programs. We plan to continue expanding the breadth of the pipeline and enhance our AI and robotics capabilities globally. Our rapidly growing team is composed of talented and experienced scientists in drug discovery with diverse backgrounds and relentless passion for novelty and innovation, and fully committed to developing novel drugs with a sense of urgency for the waiting patients.”
Insilico has also expanded its collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry through co-development and software licensing deals with a number of major pharmaceutical companies. Since the launch of its PandaOmics™ and Chemistry42™ in late 2020, nine out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have licensed Insilico’s AI platforms. In 2022, Insilico signed a multi-asset partnership deal with Fosun Pharma and EQRX in January, and a drug discovery co-development deal with EQRx in March. Notably, Insilico achieved its first major milestone and nominated a preclinical candidate for the QPCTL program for cancer immunotherapy in less than 40 days into the strategic collaboration with Fosun Pharma.
About Insilico Medicine
Insilico Medicine, a clinical stage end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, is connecting biology, chemistry, and clinical trials analysis using next-generation AI systems. The company has developed AI platforms that utilize deep generative models, reinforcement learning, transformers, and other modern machine learning techniques to discover novel targets and to design novel molecular structures with desired properties. Insilico Medicine is delivering breakthrough solutions to discover and develop innovative drugs for cancer, fibrosis, immunity, central nervous system diseases and aging-related diseases.
#InsilicoMedicine #BCapitalGroup
Meta Health Appoints Dr Bernard Ng as Chairman of the Board and Group CEO
● The management reshuffle comes at a pivotal stage of transformation as the Group endeavors to look beyond metal manufacturing and explore opportunities in the digital healthcare sector and to drive next phase of growth
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 6 June 2022 – Meta Health Limited (“META” or the “Company”, and together with its subsidiaries, the “Group”) is pleased to announce a strategic restructuring of its management team as it endeavors to diversify and expand into the digital healthcare industry. Executive Director of 5Digital Pte Ltd (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company) (“5Digital”), Dr Bernard Ng, will be re-designated to the role of Chairman and Group CEO, where he will oversee the Group’s pivot to the digital healthcare space. This new appointment will allow the current Chairman and CEO, Mr Chua Kheng Choon, to transition into the role of SVP of Engineering, where he will continue to head the operations for the metal engineering business of the Group. Both Dr Ng and Mr Chua will assume their new roles with effect from 7 June 2022.
Dr Ng brings over 20 years of professional experience in the pharmaceutical and consumer health industries to his appointment as Chairman and Group CEO. He obtained his medical degree from the National University of Malaysia in 1999 and his MBA from the University of Melbourne in 2011. Prior to joining the Group, Dr Ng served as Chief Medical Officer, Head of Global Medical and Clinical Affairs at Bayer Consumer Healthcare.
He is a strong believer of digital transformation and spends his time plugged into start-ups that are pioneering technology with the potential to create significant value for medical professionals and their patients. As Group CEO, he will leverage his expertise of medicine and digital transformation to lead META’s pivot into the consumer health industry.
As one of the founders of META, Mr Chua has accumulated over 35 years of experience in the precision metal stamping industry. Under his leadership, the Company has grown steadily from its inception as a stamping contractor to its position as a one-stop provider for mechanical manufacturing products and services. Thanks to Mr Chua’s on-going efforts and guidance, revenue from the metal stamping business rebounded strongly in FY2021, growing 29% y-o-y to S$41.7m and returning to profitability last year. As Mr Chua moves into his new role, he will continue to focus on delivering quality engineering solutions and growing the customer base of the Group’s metal engineering business.
META has deepened its presence in the digital health enabled services in the last year. The anchor investment started with acquisition of an 85.07% stake in Gainhealth Pte Ltd.(“Gainhealth”), bringing primary care and central pharmacy services together with both online and offline sales channels. META also announced a conditional sale and purchase agreement with PT Gaido Digital Medika (“PT GDM”) and a share subscription agreement to take up to 10% stake in MedTel Healthcare Private Limited (“MedTel”). These strategic investments complement the Group’s vision of becoming a leading healthcare services company in Southeast Asia, providing personalized healthcare within a hand-picked ecosystem of online and offline care providers and e-pharmacies, while leveraging on the most up-to-date insights from research and data. The launch of “Digital Hospital” in Indonesia, a trademarked product by PT GDM, has gained significant traction. In an announcement by the G20 business council, Digital Hospital has been identified as a partner of the Indonesian Tourism Medical Association in early March 2022[1].
The new personnel changes will enable the Group to advance its strategic focus on digital healthcare and become the sector’s preferred solutions provider. Dr Ng will work alongside industry veteran and Chief Medical Officer of 5Digital, Dr Vas Metupalle, a healthcare entrepreneur with 17 years of experience under his belt. Having previously founded companies in the Teleradiology (Clarity) and Telemedicine (MyDoc) space, Dr Metupalle has vast regional experience in implementing diagnostic and outpatient healthcare services for corporate health and insurance industry partners. Together, Dr Ng and Dr Metupalle make up a strong team of medical experts who will lay the foundation of META’s further exploration efforts in the field.
Dr Bernard Ng said: “It is a great privilege for me to lead META and I would like to thank the Board of Directors for their trust. I look forward to working alongside the management team to explore new streams of business development opportunities and conducting a strategic review of existing businesses, and the implementation thereof, with a view to create value for shareholders. The Group will also look into accelerating our revenue and profit growth targets through strategic acquisitions and scaling of our current activities.”
About Meta Health Limited
Meta Health Limited (META), formerly known as Metal Component Engineering Limited, was founded in 1987 in Singapore. With consistent focus on quality and engineering innovation, META has expanded its customer base by serving MNC (Multi-National-Corporation), EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services), and SME (Small-Medium-Enterprise) globally. META has recently diversified into healthcare technology and services with investment into Gainhealth Pte. Ltd., a direct-to-consumer and high-growth omnichannel health and wellness platform. META is vertically integrated with licensed clinics with pharmacy, online self-branded ecommerce portals, and product placements on regional e-commerce portals.
For more information, visit https://metahealth.sg,
www.5digital.com.sg and
www.gainhealthclinic.com
#MetaHealth
Disclaimer
This press release has been prepared by Meta Health Limited (“Company”) and its contents have been reviewed by the Company’s sponsor, ZICO Capital Pte. Ltd. (“Sponsor”), in accordance with Rule 226(2)(b) of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (“SGX-ST”) Listing Manual Section B: Rules of Catalist.
This press release has not been examined or approved by the SGX-ST and the SGX-ST assumes no responsibility for the contents of this press release, including the correctness of any of the statements or opinions made or reports contained in this press release.
The contact person for the Sponsor is Mr Alex Tan, Chief Executive Officer, ZICO Capital Pte. Ltd. at 77 Robinson Road, #06-03 Robinson 77, Singapore 068896, telephone (65) 6636 4201.
Drunk Robots Finds New Partners and Increases the Prize Pool in $METAL
The project community has exceeded 120 thousand active users, which is a huge success. All these players are immersed in the atmosphere of incredible adventures, mysterious opponents, heaps of booze, battles and valuable prizes.
More than 10k unique robots have many unique components and tools to make the player the best in the whole city of fallen machines. Players can upgrade 10 main stats, including weapons, hats, clothes, and other important components of winning and earning tokens.
In April, the project team went even further and announced four new collaborations. This time, the “robots” have partnered with well-known crypto projects that have thousands of fans: Avocado DAO, Skill Guilds, Infinity Force and Yield Guild Games SEA. Thanks to these announcements, the project has every chance to significantly expand the audience due to the growing involvement of the public and the interest of the audience from Southeast Asia.
Changes in tournament prizes for the best fighters of the city of fallen machines
The team also made significant changes to the economy. Now the pool of tokens that players could count on has been increased to 5 million for every three months. Players now need to be extra proficient in beating the crap out of their opponents, climbing to the very top of the table and earning a whopping 4,000 $METAL tokens on just one robot per month. It seems that many players will make this game their main source of income. And also from the second half of the new season, players need to crush the jaws of their opponents at least five times a 24 to get maximum profit.
About Drunk Robots
Drunk Robots – blew up the P2E and NFT space and became the most rock and roll and stylish project of the year. Become an iron brutal warrior and conquer the city of fallen machines for fun and lots of booze at
https://drunk-robots.com.
#DrunkRobots
SUNeVision Welcomes the Court of Appeal’s Ruling on Potential Breaches of Lease Conditions of Data Centers in HKSTP Industrial Estates
1. SUNeVision welcomes the recent ruling of the Court of Appeal, which is positive for the long-term development of Hong Kong’s innovation and technology (I&T) sector. SUNeVision has been a strong supporter of Hong Kong’s vision to become an international I&T hub. The recent judgement of the Court of Appeal will help to create a healthy environment for the I&T industry in Hong Kong, in line with the National 14th Five-Year Plan.
2. Land resources in Hong Kong are scarce and precious. The government has allocated more than 200 hectares of land to HKSTP to operate three industrial estates in Tseung Kwan O, Yuen Long and Tai Po. HKSTP should properly and effectively utilize the land resources to support the I&T sector. As paragraph 11 of the judgement mentions, “the rationale behind the Lease Restriction Policy is that land in the industrial estates, granted at a preferential rate for the purpose of fostering the lessees’ development of industries or businesses which the Corporation has seen fit to promote, should be dedicated to such purposes and not used for rental gain”.
3. Some data center operators in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate have been operating in a way that involves subletting or permitting third parties to occupy the leased premises. Paragraph 104 of the judgement points out that “the Possession Restriction and the Occupation Restriction should be construed in such a way as to prohibit a grantee from running or operating a business in the Corporation’s property that amounts to in substance subleasing or subletting and a business that would not foster and facilitate the growth of local technology through intensive research and development activities”.
4. HKSTP must take all reasonable measures to enforce the lease conditions and prohibit operators from subletting the premises or allowing third parties to occupy the leased premises. In reality, the breaches of lease conditions by the lessees did not just happen recently, nor have the breaches been confined to data center operators. The breaches have taken place over a long period of time, as recent cases and prosecutions have shown. HKSTP should immediately rectify the problems to ensure tenants strictly comply with the lease conditions, otherwise the tenants must return their sites to the HKSTP or the government for proper use.
5. HKSTP is a statutory authority with substantial public land resources at its disposal. It is a critical organization tasked with fostering the development of Hong Kong’s innovation and technology. Hence, the HKSTP Board and management should undertake a thorough review to ensure all of its land is put to proper use for innovation. This is not just about ensuring that there are no breaches of the lease restrictions. It is also about utilizing the land more effectively. It is a fact that a significant number of sites in the industrial estates is lying idle or under-utilized. It is also a fact that some sites in the industrial estates are occupied by tenants that no longer serve any purpose in fostering innovation in Hong Kong. HKSTP must reallocate such sites to serve Hong Kong’s latest needs in research and innovation, and help nurture young and promising new companies. If there is excess land that HKSTP cannot properly utilize, it should be returned to the government for other important uses, such as public housing.
6. The National 14th Five-Year Plan clearly states its support for Hong Kong to develop into an international I&T hub. We sincerely hope HKSTP will work together with the industry to strengthen the city’s I&T sector.
About SUNeVision
SUNeVision (SEHK: 1686), the technology arm of Sun Hung Kai Properties (SEHK: 0016), is the largest data center provider in Hong Kong. We provide industry-leading carrier and cloud-neutral data center services with Asia’s number one connectivity. We connect providers of telecommunications, cloud, ISP, CDN, OTT from local, mainland China and global with enterprises of different businesses on our Asia leading data center ecosystem.
SUNeVision forms MEGA Campus by extending the connectivity edge from highly connected MEGA-i to other high-tier data centers, including MEGA Gateway, MEGA IDC, MEGA Plus and MEGA Two. Facilities on MEGA Campus are interconnected through a dedicated dark fibre network and around 15,000 cross-connects. Together with City PoPs of major submarine cables in our facilities, we enable our customers for direct connections to multi-cloud platforms and multi-cloud exchanges with the best connectivity in town. We are committed to supporting Hong Kong as a regional information hub and a strategic gateway to mainland China.
For more information, please visit SUNeVision’s website,
LinkedIn or
WeChat.
#SUNeVision
UNFPA and The Lao Red Cross Partner to Strengthen Capacity on Blood management and services, Health Promotion and Disaster Preparedness
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Lao Red Cross (LRC) will collaborate for capacity Strengthening Programme on Blood Service and Management, Health Promotion and Disaster Preparedness, with a focus on Meung District, Bokeo Province.
AWS and HKSTP Announce Strategic Collaboration to Accelerate Innovation and Technology Development in Hong Kong
“HKSTP and AWS have been working closely for years in supporting high potential tech ventures to innovate, succeed and grow faster. We have witnessed the surging demand from businesses on cloud computing knowledge and innovation technologies. This partnership combines the scale and technology expertise of AWS, the undisputed cloud innovation leader, as well as HKSTP’s R&D, incubation and commercialization capabilities accumulated over the past 20 years, to accelerate the development of Hong Kong’s I&T ecosystem while firmly establishing the city’s status as a global innovation hub.” said Albert Wong, Chief Executive Officer, HKSTP.
“AWS is always committed to support the digital transformation of enterprises of all scales in Hong Kong,” said Robert Wang, Managing Director, Hong Kong & Taiwan, AWS. “Since 2014, AWS and HKSTP have been working together on a number of cloud programs and trainings. We are pleased to deepen our relationship with HKSTP and jointly address the various challenges the city faces in terms of talent, innovation, and technology commercialization.”
- Research and Development: HKSTP is joining the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program which extends Open Data access through STP Platform, to support local research teams, including those from universities and research laboratories. Utilizing AWS cloud services, AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program allows researchers worldwide to share and analyze datasets derived from latest studies on global pandemics, cancer, and more. The collaboration will allow researchers at HKSTP partner companies to improve efficiency, while saving costs and time needed for research and data processing.
- Technology Simulation: It is often difficult to predict the success and optimal route for commercialization of new technologies in sectors such as Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. AWS will support STP Platform to visualize outcomes through Technology Simulation, allowing developers to conduct tests and simulations at lower costs. AWS and HKSTP will also form a ‘train-the-trainer’ program using AWS RoboMaker, allowing developers to effortlessly simulate applications under virtual 3D environments and test robotics solutions built with different coding languages, all with reduced costs and higher efficiency. Programs to support simulation of other emerging technologies will follow.
- Co-incubation: AWS and HKSTP will continue to nurture startups and support their business growth. Targeting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startups, the first six-month acceleration program will provide training, technical and business consultation to help them unlock the potential of SaaS business model, enhance their SaaS products, and ultimately drive business growth and success.
- Talent and Culture Cultivation: To nurture homegrown IT talents, AWS will utilize its global training and education resources to equip students and practitioners together with HKSTP. In the first phrase, AWS and HKSTP will provide technical training in biotechnology and AI for InnoHK clusters, enterprises, and startups. Based on the needs of the participating organization, AWS will also provide tailor-made capacity-building packages including talent training and Amazon innovation culture workshops.
AWS will hold its annual AWS Summit Hong Kong online on June 7 where professionals in the industry will gather and share insights into the latest cloud trends and industry best practices. HKSTP will set up a virtual booth at the Summit to share more information about their latest collaboration with AWS. Visit https://go.aws/3Ntu3w1 to register for AWS Summit.
About Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation
Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) has for 20 continuous years committed to building up Hong Kong as an international innovation and technology hub to propel success for local and global pioneers today and tomorrow. HKSTP has established a thriving I&T ecosystem that is home to three unicorns and Hong Kong’s leading R&D hub with over 11,000 research professionals and over 1,000 technology companies focused on healthtech, AI and robotics, fintech and smart city technologies.
Established in 2001, we attract and nurture talent, accelerate and commercialise innovation and technology for entrepreneurs on their journey of growth in Hong Kong, to the Greater Bay Area, Asia and beyond. Our growing innovation ecosystem is built around our key locations of the Hong Kong Science Park in Shatin, InnoCentre in Kowloon Tong and three modern INNOPARKs in Tai Po, Tseung Kwan O and Yuen Long. The three INNOPARKs are realizing a vision of re-industrialisation for Hong Kong. The goal is sectors like advanced manufacturing, electronics and biotechnology are being reimagined for a new generation of industry.
Through our infrastructure, services, expertise and network of partnerships, HKSTP will help establish innovation and technology as a pillar of growth for Hong Kong, while reinforcing Hong Kong’s international I&T hub status as a launchpad for global growth at the heart of the GBA innovation powerhouse.
More information about HKSTP is available at www.hkstp.org.
About Amazon Web Services
For over 15 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any cloud workload, and it now has more than 200 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 84 Availability Zones within 26 geographic regions, with announced plans for 24 more Availability Zones and eight more AWS Regions in Australia, Canada India, Israel, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
#AWS #AmazonWebServices
Comba Telecom Releases 4G/5G (8TR) Green Integrated Base Station Antenna
Support Operators Achieve Carbon Neutrality Targets
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 6 June 2022 – Comba Telecom Systems Holdings Limited (“Comba Telecom” or “the Group”, SEHK stock code: 2342), a global leading wireless solutions provider, today announced the release of 4G/5G (8TR) Green Integrated Base Station Antenna, which expands its tower top portfolio to support operators achieve carbon neutrality targets.
In the face of increasingly severe global climate change, green growth and carbon emissions reduction have become a global consensus. As carbon emissions and socio-economic development are interrelated, countries worldwide prioritize achieving the carbon neutrality targets, requiring the energy consumption restructuring of different industries. 5G-enabled technologies and connectivity, which empower the major verticals to digitalize and transform the way they operate, play an important role in combating climate change. With the mission to support net-zero goals, Comba Telecom, as a leading provider of wireless and communications systems, explores and innovates new architectures, solutions, and technologies of mobile antenna systems, and provides a series of forward-thinking solutions for operators to build green, low-carbon, intelligent and highly efficient 5G networks.
To support the low-carbon deployment of 5G networks, Comba Telecom has launched a high-end 4G/5G (8TR) integrated Base Station Antenna (BSA), which meets the capacity and coverage requirements, and has become the mainstream tower-top antenna solution for global 5G network construction.
For low-carbon network operation, Comba Telecom has released a low-loss and high-efficiency green antenna. With the adoption of Pin to Pin low-insertion-loss modular integration solution, low-insertion-loss phase shifters and feeder network integration is achieved, minimizing the antenna internal loss, and improving the antenna gains and efficiency. As a result, it will improve the base station’s coverage under the same input power, which is conducive to reducing the density of the base station. While within the same coverage area, the input power of the base station is lower, and its energy consumption is minimized.
Striving to build a green industry supply chain, reduce the carbon footprint in the manufacturing process and realize sustainability throughout the life cycle of the antenna, Comba Telecom introduced a new environmentally friendly coating process, using the ion beam coating to replace the traditional electroplating process which consumes high energy and causes environmental pollution. Also, Comba Telecom innovated and developed a lightweight, environmentally-friendly radome with low-dielectric constant through the application of foam-solid combination, modified thermoplastic material, and composite extrusion foaming processes. The whole process of manufacturing is pollution-free, and the product can be easily recycled and reused. In addition, the low dielectric constant, low loss, and low-density features help to reduce the weight of the antenna and improve its efficiency.
Comba Telecom will continue to accelerate 5G network evolution and technological advancement, enabling operators to build high-quality, high-efficient, green, and low-carbon new network infrastructure through technology and product innovation.
About Comba Telecom Systems Holdings Limited
Comba Telecom is a global leading wireless solutions provider with its own R&D facilities, manufacturing base and sales and service teams. The Group offers a comprehensive suite of products and services including base station antennas and subsystems, network products, services, and wireless transmission to its global customers. Headquartered in Hong Kong, with manufacturing bases and R&D centers in China, Comba Telecom provides wireless communication solutions and information application services to customers in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. Comba Telecom was included in the MSCI Hong Kong Small Cap Index in November 2019. Furthermore, the Group was included as a constituent stock of Hang Seng Composite SmallCap Index, Hang Seng Internet & Information Technology Index and other Hang Seng Family of Indexes, and the China-Hong Kong Stock Connect under the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect in September 2020. For further information, please visit: www.comba-telecom.com
#CombaTelecom