Yunfeng Capital, a private equity firm, AstraZeneca, a global, science-led biopharmaceutical business, and CICC, an investment bank, led a $100m Series B funding round in Axbio, a Chinese gene sequencing developer, with participation from CBC Group, a Singaporean health-dedicated investment firm. The new funding will allow Axbio to advance the development and commercialization of its new-generation sequencer in the fast-growing genomics market. The firm’s first manufacturing facility in Wuxi, eastern Jiangsu province is due be completed by the end of the year. "The NGS technology has a history of over a decade. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated its global adoption, the technological barrier and cost constraints in advancing a highly-integrated platform have hindered the penetration of high-thoughput sequencing solutions," Bing Chen, AstraZeneca Vice President.