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谷歌投资和InCube Ventures以及VentureHealth三家投资公司决定赞助Rani医药公司进行将注射药物如胰岛素转化为口服药物的研究。虽然Rani公司并未透露本轮募资的总金额，但知情人士表示投资应该在1000万美元以上。将胰岛素等大分子蛋白质药物通过口服来达到治疗效果不但是科学家一直以来的梦想，更意味着数以十亿计的市场份额。但是人体环境的复杂性如肠胃环境对这类药物的破坏性作用也一直是这类研究的难点之一。Rani公司想要在人体试验中在获得其动物实验中的成功还面临着很大不确定性。但是谷歌投资的官员表示对Rani公司的研发能力充满信心。（生物谷Bioon.com）
详细英文报道：
In a gamble on making oral versions of typically injected therapies, Google Ventures has joined forces with InCube Ventures and VentureHealth to fund a Series B round for Rani Therapeutics. And with its lofty oral-delivery goals, San Jose, CA-based Rani is tackling the kind of big idea in biotech that Google's ($GOOG) venture fund likes to bankroll.
Rani issued a press release Wednesday afternoon about the venture deal without dollar details, but a Wall Street Journal blog reported that the amount raised was in excess of $10 million.
Drug-delivery experts have long dreamed of the multibillion-dollar opportunity of making lucrative injected products such as insulin and anti-TNF therapies into easy-to-take pills. Yet there are myriad obstacles, including the destructive powers of the digestive tract, which can prevent enough of the biologics from reaching the blood stream if swallowed. Spearheaded by medical tech entrepreneur Mir Imran at InCube Labs, Rani has tested oral biologics in preclinical experiments with bioavailability of more than 50%, according to InCube's website.
"The oral delivery of large molecules is considered the Holy Grail of drug delivery," Google Ventures Partner Blake Byers said in a statement. "Mir Imran and InCube Labs have a proven track record for solving some of the most challenging problems in medicine. At Google Ventures, we often say that we invest in entrepreneurs who want to change the world, and our investment in Rani is a perfect example of that mission at work."
Rani and its investors face the customary hurdle of repeating its preclinical success in human tests, making the company a risky gamble for most venture investors at this early stage. Yet Imran, who has had a hand in founding more than 20 companies, has been experimenting with funding models to fuel his latest upstarts. Imran and his partners from Silicon Valley VC firm InCube recently founded the "crowdfunding" vehicle VentureHealth, which features a portal for wealthy investors to explore investment opportunities in healthcare upstarts.
Rani might also encounter mammoth competitors with deep pockets. Take Novo Nordisk ($NVO), the world's top producer of insulin, which has already had some early success with an oral version of the diabetes therapy in humans.