The 7th ChinaBio® Investor Forum, held December 2-3, 2009 in Tianjin, concluded a very successful meeting by giving “Most Promising Company” awards to two young China life science companies (see story). Sinocro Medical of Tianjin won the prize in the Medical Device category, and Tianjin CanSino Biotechnology, a vaccine company, was the recipient in the Biopharma group. For seventeen young and mid-life companies (eight of them from Tianjin), the Investor Forum was a chance to present their business plans to venture capitalists who are actively promoting China life sciences.

Concord Medical Services Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: CCM), a company that operates radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging centers in China, plans to raise $126 million its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange next week (see story). The company claims to be the largest provider of radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging services in China. It currently operates 83 centers in 55 hospitals, located in 36 cities across China. In the first nine months of 2009, Concord produced $30 million of revenue and $13 million of net income. At $11 per share, Concord would have a market capitalization of $516 million.

FORMA Therapeutics, a pre-clinical stage Cambridge, MA biopharma, has closed a Series B financing that raised $25.5 million (see story). The round was led by new investor Lilly Ventures, while existing investors Novartis Option Fund and Bio*One Capital of Singapore participated. Forma has established a laboratory in Beijing at Tsinghua University, headed by Yigong Shi, PhD, a molecular biologist who is Chair of the School of Medicine there. The company also has labs in Singapore and Connecticut.

PPD, Inc. (NSDQ: PPDI) closed its acquisition of BioDuro and announced it spent $77 million on the transaction (see story). The price was not previously released, nor has PPD disclosed the annual revenues of privately held BioDuro. PPD did say that, post-acquisition, it has nearly 1,000 employees in China. Of these, almost 660 came from BioDuro.

On November 30th, China’s MoHRSS (Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security) released the 2009 version of the National Drug Reimbursement List, which includes 260 new drugs, bringing it to a total of 2151 products (see story). In the new list, all 307 members of the Essential Drug List are automatically included in the A class, which confers the highest levels of insurance reimbursement on these basic drugs. It was the first update of the Reimbursement List since 2004.

Bayer Schering Pharma AG (XE: SCH) received SFDA approval of its Betaferon® (interferon beta-1b) therapy for patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) (see story). Bayer plans to launch Betaferon, which is available in more than 100 countries around the world in China, by mid-2010. To gain approval in China, Bayer Schering conducted a six-month, single-arm trial of Betaferon in 39 Chinese patients with relapsing-remitting MS.

Tianyin Pharmaceutical (NYSE Alternext: TPI), a modernized TCM company, forecast a 75% improvement in fiscal year 2011 (ending June 30, 2011) results (see story). The company said it expects revenue of $113 million for fiscal 2011, up from $63.6 million in 2010, and net income of $19.6 million, a rise from $11.3 million in the current year.

Tianyin Pharma also received SFDA approval for two TCM products (see story). Pediatric Fever and Cough Oral Liquid is a generic prescription TCM that treats respiratory tract infections and influenza in children. The second product, Antibacterial and Anti-inflammatory Capsules, is a generic OTC TCM that provides a general antibiotic effect. Both products will enter markets with over $1 billion in sales each year.

Simcere Pharmaceutical Group (NYSE: SCR) (先声药业) has stopped a production line at its recently acquired vaccine subsidiary while it reviews quality control systems in the company (see story). Simcere obtained majority control of Jiangsu Yanshen Biological Technology Stock Co. on October 24, 2009. Simcere said it soon discovered problems with quality control in the production of Yanshen's human-use rabies vaccine (vero cell).

Sinovac Biotech (NYSE: SVA) announced the fourth purchase order for its H1N1 vaccine, PANFLU.1™, this one for 1 million doses (see story). The latest order brings Sinovac’s total to 12.5 million doses, of which 7.6 million doses have already been delivered. Sinovac expects to complete the order early next year.

China Sky One Medical (NSDQ: CSKI) (中国天字一号医药公司) has signed up Guangdong Mediacy Kind Medical Devices Industry Service Company to be its exclusive sales agent in Southeast Asia for two of the company’s diagnostic kits: AMI Diagnostic Kit, used to diagnose myocardial infarction, and Human Urinary Albumin Elisa Kit, which diagnoses early acute kidney disease (see story).

AlphaRx (OTCBB: ALRX) announced that, as part of its China strategy, it would establish a corporate headquarters in Hong Kong and an R&D facility in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park (see story). Previously, AlphaRx has said it was seeking partners to help defray the expense of building new facilities, but Zhangjiang Park apparently offered enough incentives to allow AlphaRx to follow a go-it-alone strategy.

In a continuing attempt to cut costs, the Anglo-Swedish pharma AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) said it would move all of its API production off British shores, with most of it going to China (see story). The company will close a plant in the UK that manufactures APIs for cholesterol and schizophrenia drugs. Presumably, the company’s new facility in Wuxi will step in to replace at least some of the lost API production.

Disclosure: none.