(Yicai) March 17 -- BioMap, a Chinese life sciences artificial intelligence model firm set up by Robin Li, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Chinese tech giant Baidu, has confidentially applied for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, according to new reports.

BioMap aims to raise several hundred million US dollars from the IPO, several media outlets reported yesterday. Baidu declined to comment when contacted by Yicai.

The plan to go public has been in the works for a long time at BioMap, with CEO Liu Wei saying that the company plans to actively seek a Hong Kong IPO within the next year and a half last June.

In May 2020, Li co-authored a research paper on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, published in Cell Research. Three months later, he co-founded BioMap with Liu, who previously served as CEO of Baidu Ventures, becoming chairman of the new firm.

In the early stages of BioMap, Li directly and indirectly held about 40 percent of the company. However, the domestic operating entity of BioMap underwent a business registration change last September, with Li and related Baidu entities exiting the direct shareholder list, according to business data platform Tianyancha.

The ownership was transferred to BioMap, which became the wholly-owned holding firm. The move was interpreted by the market as an effort to optimize its equity structure in preparation for a potential IPO.

The technological backbone of BioMap is the foundational life sciences large language model xTrimo V4, which comprises 268 billion parameters. The model aims to decode the underlying principles of biological systems, including genomes, proteins, and cellular biology, through AI.

BioMap's products include the BioMap OS, an LLM-driven life sciences discovery system, which has been validated in over 60 projects, covering new target discovery, antibody development, innovative drug development, and other areas, according to the company.

BioMap has served over 800 global institutions and more than 30 leading enterprises, it said. French drugmaker Sanofi previously allied with BioMap to leverage its AI platform to jointly develop advanced AI modules for biotherapeutic drug discovery.

Editor: Martin Kadiev