Secures another $600 million in funding; Hengrui NewCo goes overseas to win the crucial round.

When the startup Kailera Therapeutics announced that it had raised $600 million in a Series B round led by Bain Capital, the atmosphere in the entire biotech investment community was instantly ignited.

Against the backdrop of a still cold U.S. biomedical capital market in 2025, this financing has become one of the largest private biotech deals of the year, once again attracting global attention. The key behind this $600 million relies on the results of a Phase 3 clinical trial completed by Hengrui Pharma in China.

As a leading company in China, Hengrui is rapidly expanding overseas through the NewCo model and has already achieved significant results.

A "Certainty" from China

To understand the value of this $600 million, we must return to the core driving force of the deal: KAI-9531, an injectable GLP-1/GIP dual receptor agonist, whose mechanism is almost identical to Eli Lilly’s blockbuster “king of drugs” Zepbound.

However, what truly persuades top investors like Bain Capital to sign huge checks is not the "similarity" in mechanisms, but the "certainty" in clinical data.   

In July this year, Kailera and its partner Hengrui announced that in a 48-week Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in China, KAI-9531 (internally codenamed HRS9531 at Hengrui) achieved astonishing success: at all three dosage levels tested, patients saw an average weight loss of 17.7%. More specifically, 88% of subjects lost at least 5% of their body weight, and as many as 44.4% achieved more than 20% weight loss.   

In the traditional biotech financing model, startups often rely on preclinical or early clinical (Phase 1/2) data to attract investment.

But this capital effect, driven by certainty in clinical data, is significant. Shortly after the publication of China’s Phase 3 data, Kailera swiftly completed its end-of-Phase II meeting with the US FDA, and secured a green light to launch global Phase 3 clinical trials.

Soon after, this massive $600 million financing naturally followed.

With this huge injection of funds, Kailera will fully advance its global, especially US market expansion—the US being consistently the top priority in the global pharmaceutical industry.

Hengrui’s NewCo Wins the Match Point

Seen from another perspective, Kailera’s story is a brilliant capital operation in Hengrui Pharma’s globalization strategy.

In May 2024, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharma used the “NewCo” model to license the global development, manufacturing, and commercialization rights (excluding Mainland China) of three GLP-1 drugs (HRS-7535, HRS-9531, HRS-4729) to the newly established US company Hercules. Hercules was jointly funded by Bain Capital, RTW Investments, Atlas Venture, and Lyra Capital, with an initial capital of $400 million.

The total value of the deal can reach $6 billion, including a $100 million upfront payment, $10 million for technology transfer, up to $200 million in clinical and regulatory milestone payments, and up to $5.725 billion in sales milestone payments. In addition, Hengrui also gained about 19.9% equity in Kailera.

In October 2024, Hercules officially changed its name to Kailera Therapeutics, and completed a $400 million Series A round.

Now, the $600 million Series B has pushed this cooperation model to a new climax.

In the past, Chinese pharmaceutical firms going global often faced two tough paths: one, investing heavily to build teams from scratch in the US and independently conducting long, expensive clinical trials and commercialization—an extremely risky strategy; two, licensing promising assets to multinational pharma companies at an early stage, which brings upfront and milestone payments, but usually offers only a small share of later commercialization profits and surrenders control of the assets.

Now, Hengrui has adopted a third path: implementing globalization through an independent, dollar-fund-backed “NewCo”.

Hengrui injected its pipeline assets into a specially established entity—Kailera—supported by top US VCs. This entity has a seasoned Western biotech management team (Kailera CEO Ron Renaud has successfully sold three companies) and solid capital.   

This model brings multiple benefits for Hengrui:

First, Hengrui does not have to use its own balance sheet to shoulder the enormous costs—hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars—of global Phase 3 clinical trials. Meanwhile, by holding equity in Kailera, Hengrui can share more deeply in the massive commercial returns achieved when the drug succeeds globally.

Second, Hengrui is leveraging Kailera's team for smooth FDA communication, and the endorsement of institutions like Bain Capital, which are crucial for swiftly moving the project forward globally. This is equivalent to outsourcing the most challenging “last mile” to those most skilled at it. As Kailera expands globally and clinical data continues to roll out, Hengrui will reap further capital benefits in future market competition.

Most importantly, the $600 million financing itself is global recognition of Hengrui’s innovation and R&D strength. This will undoubtedly boost Hengrui’s brand value and bargaining power in the global biopharma ecosystem.

With $1 billion in funding, Kailera will not only support multiple global Phase 3 studies for KAI-9531, but also advance development of Hengrui's oral GLP-1 agonist and a triple-targeted agonist. A deep and broad "weight loss drug matrix," composed of multiple next-generation products, is taking shape.   

More profoundly, Chinese companies like Hengrui, with world-class R&D capability and rich clinical pipelines, are becoming the “new continent” for global innovative medicines, showing that “China innovation, global realization” is emerging as a clear trend.   

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