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Evergreen VC Fund Drives Cross-sector Synergy, Connecting Global and Taiwanese Biotech Ecosystems
Data from market research and intelligence platform StartUs Insights indicates that there are about 10,000 biotech and pharma start-ups globally as of 2025. This figure could double in case medtech and healthtech sectors are included. However, life sciences entrepreneurship remains notoriously challenging, characterized by substantial early-stage R&D investments, protracted timelines (often exceeding 10 years), high clinical and regulatory risks (success rates below 10%), and slow commercialization. Consequently, most start-ups ultimately fail to reach their specific R&D, approval, or IPO milestones in time. Therefore, whether a start-up can secure long-term funding and professional support often determines its ability to navigate the “Valley of Death” and progress toward clinical stages or even commercialization.
Under this context, an investment model better aligned with the unique nature of biomedical innovation is emerging – Evergreen funds. Unlike traditional venture capital funds, which typically aim to exit within 10 years, these funds operate without time constraints, enabling them to support the long-term incubation of scientific breakthroughs. This provides portfolio companies with stable funding and resources to validate their platforms or drug candidates, significantly increasing the likelihood of successful clinical application or market deployment and thus generating tangible long-term value.
Related article: Navigating the Valley of Death: How Biotech Start-ups Can Survive Venture Capital Realities
Addressing Unmet Needs Through Investment in Diverse Cutting-Edge Technologies
Initiated by the Research Center for Biotechnology and Medicine Policy (RBMP), Everbright Biofund is an evergreen biotech VC fund uniquely positioned to make a difference in the biotech and healthcare investment industry. Since its inception in December 2024, the fund has been working closely with academic institutions alongside banking institutions, securing initial funding of NT$3 billion (approximately US$100 million) from several Taiwanese tech giants and influential capital families.
Throughout its first year of operation, Everbright’s investment portfolio comprises four funded start-ups from Taiwan and the US. With cutting-edge expertise spanning AI-assisted drug discovery, spatial proteomics, umbilical cord blood stem cell therapy, and fully synthetic vaccine adjuvants, each has achieved notable breakthroughs, demonstrating promise in entering international markets and addressing unmet needs within their respective fields.
This year, the fund also co-hosted Med X Tech Summit Asia 2025 (MedTex 2025) with the Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry (IBMI) and RBMP, further demonstrating its rapidly growing influence within Taiwan’s biomedical venture capital ecosystem and the sector as a whole.
Iambic Rises to Prominence with AI-designed Oncology Candidate
As the only U.S. start-up among Everbright’s four portfolio companies, Iambic Therapeutics — focused on building an AI-powered drug discovery platform — participated in MedTex 2025 to showcase its core technologies and recent R&D advancements to Taiwanese and international experts and investors. Since its founding in 2020, the San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech has raised over $300 million through multiple funding rounds. Notably, it secured $100 million in its most recent round completed in November, which saw Everbright joining as the only Taiwanese VC fund among a roster of top-tier global investors.
Tom Miller, Iambic’s co-founder and CEO, delivered a video presentation at MedTex this year. He highlighted the company’s proprietary technology platforms, NeuralPLexer and Enchant, which leverage AI to rapidly simulate protein structures and predict molecular behavior in the body (including absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) during early drug design stages, consequently generating candidate compounds. With industry-leading accuracy and speed surpassing major competitors like Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold 3 and TxGemma models, these technologies can shorten R&D timelines and reduce failure rates.
Additionally, Miller noted that IAM1363, Iambic’s investigational oncology candidate, entered Phase 1 multicenter clinical trials in March 2024—just two years after its initial design using AI, setting an industry record. Furthermore, this small-molecule HER2 inhibitor exhibits high selectivity, pan-mutant activity (effective against multiple HER2 gene aberrations), and brain-penetrating properties (suitable for patients with brain metastases), making it promising across various HER2 mutation-positive solid tumors.
StemCyte Pioneers Breakthroughs in Taiwan’s Cell Therapy Industry
Besides Iambic Therapeutics, three Taiwanese start-ups in Everbright’s current portfolio have also garnered significant attention. StemCyte, with years of international clinical experience in cell therapy, saw its umbilical cord blood-derived hematopoietic cell therapy RegeneCyte granted Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation and Biologics License Application (BLA) approval by the US FDA over the past year, both representing industry firsts for Taiwan. In particular, the BLA milestone positions the company as the world’s first commercial biotech to secure regulatory approval for a cord blood stem cell therapy.
To date, StemCyte’s cord blood products have been used in over 2,300 transplant cases worldwide, with indications spanning about 80 conditions. Given that Taiwan’s Regenerative Medicine Act and Regenerative Medicinal Products Act will take full effect on January 2026, coupled with the fact that umbilical cord blood serves both hematopoietic reconstruction and immune modulation functions, StemCyte’s role in advancing the development and clinical application of next-generation cell therapies presents compelling prospects.
Syncell and ImmunAdd Hold Promising Platforms with Enormous Potential
Syncell’s Microscoop is a pioneering spatial biology platform and the first “pickable” microscope that uses high-precision optical targeting and photolabeling technology to isolate and identify thousands of known and previously unknown proteins within specific cellular and subcellular regions of interest, followed by mass spectrometric analysis on these regions, enabling researchers to efficiently explore unknown proteins or disease biomarkers.
This microscopy-guided technology stands out for its ability to detect localized proteomic abnormalities within tumor microenvironments or neuron samples, rendering it highly promising for novel drug target identification, pharmacodynamics studies, and clinical biomarker discovery. Furthermore, Syncell’s establishment of partnerships with leading international academic and research institutions signifies that its platform has advanced into the phase of outcome validation.
Founded in 2022 as a spin-off from National Taiwan University, ImmunAdd has developed the saponin-based adjuvant IA-05 through total chemical synthesis. The immune-stimulating molecule is designed as an improved derivative of saponin QS-21, which is unsustainably extracted from the bark of Quillaja Saponaria tree, with the goal of overcoming the limitations of natural adjuvants in terms of yield, stability, and tolerability.
Regarding vaccine formulation design, IA-05 offers advantages in inducing long-lasting T-cell immune responses and stability. Its synthetic pathway replaces natural extraction to ensure scalable supply, making it a potential candidate for infectious disease and cancer vaccine development. It also serves as an alternative solution during global raw material supply shortages or sudden surges in vaccine demand.
An Evergreen VC Fund Committed to Building a Biomedical Innovation Ecosystem
Pan-Chyr Yang, IBMI’s Vice President and one of Everbright’s board members, mentioned in his opening remarks at MedTex 2025 that the VC fund has aggregated over 2,500 innovative R&D achievements from Taiwan’s industry, academia, research institutions and medical sectors over the last two decades. Beyond financial investment, the fund can mobilize a network of about 150 cross-disciplinary experts for technical and clinical reviews, together with evaluation of commercialization potential of R&D projects. This integrated investment model, which pools resources from industry, academia, research institutions, and medical centers, positions Everbright as a key enabler for promising biomedical start-ups to achieve rapid growth and global outreach. Meanwhile, by investing in overseas biotech and medtech companies, it enhances Taiwan’s visibility in the international venture capital market.
As Everbright enters its second year, Yang emphasized that the VC fund welcomes local and cross-border investment and fundraising collaborations, while gradually expanding investments in tandem with life science research. For emerging companies in Taiwan and globally, the fund will offer direct investment, fundraising advice, as well as opportunities for technology and supply chain collaborations and industry-clinical partnerships, striving to build a comprehensive ecosystem spanning basic science to clinical applications.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the milestones achieved by Everbright’s current portfolio companies in R&D, product licensing, international collaborations, and regulatory filings undoubtedly anchor the spotlight, the companies selected for inclusion in the next investment cohort will also attract significant attention.
