On April 19, Metis TechBio (stylized as “METiS TechBio”) announced that it had cleared its listing hearing at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), a key step toward a Hong Kong IPO.
Jefferies, Deutsche Bank, and CITIC Securities are acting as joint sponsors.
Founded in 2020, Metis TechBio focuses on the delivery and application of payloads across a range of biological systems, using artificial intelligence-powered nanotechnology to advance healthcare solutions.
Metis’ technologies are used to support the development of therapies targeting a wide range of diseases with high unmet clinical needs, enabling novel formulation and delivery approaches for organs and tissues including the gastrointestinal tract, liver, lungs, heart, immune organs, brain, muscles, and tumors. The company notes that these organs are associated with many of the most prevalent and difficult-to-treat diseases, representing significant potential market demand.
To date, Metis has built a pipeline of more than ten products, including several discovery-stage candidates, four preclinical drug candidates, three clinical-stage assets, one pre-NDA asset, and two animal health products.
Citing a Frost & Sullivan report, IPO Zaozhidao said Metis’ MTS-004 represents the fastest-advancing pipeline developed using AI-driven formulation technology. Last October, MTS-004 met the primary endpoint of its Phase 3 clinical study, becoming the first known AI-enabled formulation drug candidate in China to complete Phase 3 clinical trials. It took 38 months from project initiation to completion of the phase.
On the financial side, Metis reported revenue of approximately RMB 9.3 million (USD 1.4 million), RMB 15 million (USD 2.2 million), and RMB 105 million (USD 15.4 million) in 2023, 2024, and 2025, respectively. Its gross margin during the same period was 59.8%, 55.5%, and 98.2%. As of December 31, 2025, the company held a combined RMB 1.13 billion (USD 165.4 million) in cash and cash equivalents, time deposits, and financial assets measured at fair value.
Since its founding, Metis has raised more than USD 300 million across multiple funding rounds. Its primary investors include CICC Capital, HongShan, PICC Capital Equity Investment, 5Y Capital, and China Life Private Equity. Other backers include the Beijing Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry Investment Fund, Daxing Investment, FreesFund, Source Code Capital, Luminous Ventures (formerly Lightspeed China) XtalPi, CMB International, a venture fund under Taiping Hong Kong, Monolith, Yayi Capital, among other institutions.
Nanomaterials can enable targeted delivery to specific organs and tissues and allow direct cellular interaction, giving them significant potential to address disease at the molecular level. However, traditional nanomaterials development has relied heavily on trial and error, constrained by limited molecular structures and an incomplete understanding of biological interactions. This has made discovery slow, costly, inefficient, and low yielding. Advances in AI are changing this process by integrating data, algorithms, and iterative validation to enable faster design, prediction, and optimization, improving efficiency, precision, and safety.
In June 2025, AbbVie completed its USD 2.1 billion acquisition of Capstan, whose core pipeline is based on an in vivo CAR-T therapy using lipid nanoparticle (LNP) nanodelivery technology.
At the center of Metis’ AI-driven nanotechnology delivery system is NanoForge, its core platform. It includes a self-generated large-scale lipid library, foundational AI models, the Metis agent, quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics simulations, and an AI-driven high-throughput screening system.
Built on this foundation, Metis has developed three specialized AI platforms:
- AiTEM, a small-molecule formulation design platform.
- AiLNP, a nucleic acid delivery system design platform.
- AiRNA, an mRNA sequence design platform.
These platforms simulate, predict, and interpret nanoscale interactions, enabling the design, optimization, and validation of nanomaterials and associated payloads.
Metis said it has built a lipid library containing more than ten million structurally diverse lipids. This supports targeted delivery and has enabled the development of nanomaterials designed to deliver payloads to multiple organs. The company also states that it has developed a de novo lipid language model and generative algorithm, an AI-plus-multiscale simulation small-molecule formulation platform, and an end-to-end lipid nanoparticle screening platform, reducing the average development time for targeted formulations to two to three months.
These capabilities form the company’s core barriers to entry. Prior to such developments, AI-driven nanodelivery was, in its view, limited by insufficient data, models, and algorithms.
IPO Zaozhidao noted that, in some respects, Metis can be compared to SpaceX in the pharmaceutical sector. By applying AI nanodelivery technology, it aims to reduce the cost of large-molecule drug development and improve R&D efficiency.
The three co-founders of Metis are alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and bring complementary expertise in AI, drug delivery, and translational science:
- Chris Lai, co-founder and CEO, holds a doctorate from MIT, is a serial entrepreneur, and previously worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey, advising pharmaceutical clients.
- Chen Hongming, co-founder and chief R&D officer, is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and an experienced drug delivery scientist. She contributed to founding TransForm Pharmaceuticals, later acquired by Johnson & Johnson, and from 2010 to 2021 held senior research roles at Kala Pharmaceuticals, including chief scientific officer.
- Wang Wenshou, co-founder and COO, holds a doctorate in polymer chemistry and previously conducted research at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he co-developed a machine learning-driven 3D printer and later founded a company based on that technology.
Metis currently operates three global R&D centers in Beijing, Hangzhou, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, with more than 70% of its staff focused on R&D. As of April 17, it had about 40 doctorate holders and more than 100 scientists across disciplines including nanomedicine, physics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, computational biology, medicine, polymer science, chemical engineering, and physical chemistry. As of the same date, it had filed 217 patent applications and been granted 52 patents.
In five years, Metis has built a diversified pipeline spanning multiple therapeutic areas, target organs, and drug modalities, supporting the scalability of its AI nanomaterials platform.
Its three leading clinical-stage assets are MTS-004, MTS-201, and MTS-105. All target disease areas with unmet clinical needs and commercial potential and reflect the application of the company’s nanodelivery capabilities:
- MTS-004 is an oral therapeutic candidate for pseudobulbar effect. As no approved treatment currently exists in China, it may benefit from a first-mover position. It was outlicensed in September 2025, and the company expects its remaining assets to reach commercialization between the first quarter of 2027 and the fourth quarter of 2028. In this program, Metis used AiTEM to reduce preclinical formulation development time from one to two years to less than three months.
- MTS-105 is an mRNA therapeutic candidate targeting liver cancer and other advanced solid tumors with liver metastases. Built on the AiRNA and AiLNP platforms, it encodes a T-cell engager and uses an optimized lipid nanoparticle delivery system to target the liver and sustain in vivo expression. It is currently in the investigator-initiated trial stage and has received orphan drug designation from the US Food and Drug Administration.
- MTS-201 is an orally administered TGR5 agonist with low systemic exposure and localized activity. It stimulates enteroendocrine cells to release GLP-1, GLP-2, and peptide YY. It is being explored across metabolic and inflammatory conditions, including MASH, diabetes, obesity, and colitis, and is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials.
Beyond therapeutics, Metis is exploring applications of its platform in other areas, including animal health. It is developing assets such as PTS-101 for pet obesity and PTS-201 for muscle-targeting therapies aimed at improving longevity and mobility in animals. In August 2025, it signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese pet health supply chain provider to develop AI-enabled animal health products.
On commercialization, Metis follows a dual model of platform partnerships and product licensing. It reports more than 30 pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners globally, including large pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and research institutions.
Under platform partnerships, Metis provides AI-driven formulation and delivery solutions, generating revenue from research fees, option fees, and potential licensing fees.
Under product collaborations, it develops its own assets and may license them to partners in exchange for upfront payments, milestones, and royalties.
In December 2024, Metis signed an R&D collaboration agreement with a global pharmaceutical company, later amended in March 2025, to evaluate its lipid library for organ-specific delivery. The partner paid a nonrefundable USD 2 million for certain negotiation rights. In March this year, Metis signed another agreement with the same company to conduct joint research on liposome discovery. Both agreements have two-year terms.
In July 2025, Metis also signed a research collaboration agreement with a US-listed biopharmaceutical company with a market capitalization exceeding USD 4 billion, covering mRNA and lipid nanoparticle technologies.
Since July 2025, it has signed five additional research collaboration agreements with new partners, with contract values ranging from approximately USD 45 million to USD 109 million per target.
Under its licensing model, Metis signed an agreement in September 2025 for MTS-004 in mainland China. By early December 2025, it had received an upfront payment of RMB 100 million (USD 14.6 million). Total milestone payments for the indication could reach RMB 1.845 billion (USD 270.1 million), with additional payments tied to potential indication expansion.
Metis said these combined approaches generate both short-term revenue and long-term value through licensing.
According to its prospectus, proceeds from the IPO will be used primarily to fund R&D and advancement of its AI infrastructure and nanomaterials platform, support clinical trials, expand into new application areas, build a global ecosystem, and cover working capital and general corporate purposes.
This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Stone Jin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.83 = USD 1 based on estimates as of April 21, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.