Deals and Financings

Hangzhou Tigermed Consulting (SHE: 300347), a China clinical-stage CRO, will add pre-clinical capability to its service offerings by paying $50.2 million to acquire a 70% stake in Frontage Labs, headquartered in Pennsylvania (see story). Frontage Labs provides both pre-clinical and clinical CRO services through its facilities in Pennsylvania and the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai. Tigermed said Frontage would continue to operate independently, with its current management team, led by CEO Dr. Song Li, remaining intact. 

The Asian Development Bank, a finance institution that fights poverty in Asia, will invest up to $60 million in Orbimed Asia Partners II, a private equity fund with the goal of commercializing affordable drugs in Asia, especially China and India (see story). Seeking an avenue to diversify its efforts, the ADB sent out requests for proposals to eleven fund managers, eventually choosing Orbimed. Orbimed officially announced the fund in August, 2013 with a goal of raising $300 million. Recently, in an exclusive interview with ChinaBio® Today, Dr. Jonathan Wang, a founder of Orbimed Asia, discussed the healthcare-focused company and its investment strategy. 

Livzon Mabpharm of China led a $36 million Series B funding round for Epirus Biopharma, a Boston-based company developing biosimilars (see story). Simultaneously, Epirus announced a reverse-merger with Zalicus (NSDQ: ZLCS), a company with a portfolio of innovative pain medication candidates. After the transaction, Epirus will own about 86% of the merged company. 

BeiGene, a Beijing biopharma founded in 2010, will receive a $5 million milestone payment from Merck Serono (XETRA: MRK), which in-licensed ex-China rights to BeiGene’s second-generation BRAF inhibitor last year (see story). In December, BeiGene began enrolling patients in a China Phase I clinical trial of BGB-283 in cancer patients with BRAF or KRAS mutations. The deal for BGB-283, which is worth up to $233 million, is one of two cancer drug collaborations established between the two companies.

ScinoPharm (TW: 1789), a Taiwanese API company, and Lee's Pharma (HK: 950) of China formed two collaborations to develop high-end generic drugs for the China market (see story). One of the collaborations is for fondaparinux, an anticoagulant, and the other involves two glaucoma treatments, travoprost and bimatoprost. ScinoPharm’s specialty is difficult-to-make APIs while Lee’s contributes its China marketing experience, with a focus on ophthalmic products. 

Harbin Gloria Pharma (SHE: 002437), a China injectable drugmaker, has joined Cumberland Pharma (NSDQ: CPIX) of Tennessee in Cumberland Emerging Technologies, a translational R&D effort (see story). Both companies have made $1 million investments in CET, though Cumberland remains the majority owner. Gloria will have the right of first refusal on China rights to CET’s product candidates, which are discovered at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and other regional research centers.

Government and Regulatory

China will remove price caps on 280 western drugs and 250 traditional Chinese medicines, according to an announcement from the National Development and Reform Commission (see story). Producers of these products will now be able to set prices according to the cost of production. However, the NDRC asked local authorities to monitor the prices of these products and report any large increases. The price limits induced shortages of some products, as drug companies decided they couldn't make a profit on them. 

CRO/CMO News

WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX) has broken ground on a $100 million R&D and small-molecule cGMP manufacturing site in Changzhou, China (see story). The plant is the second for WuXi in as many weeks: last week, the company announced it had started building a biologics manufacturing facility in Philadelphia. In 2013, drug manufacturing supplied one-fourth of WuXi’s revenues. 

WuXi PharmaTech and TaiMed Biologics of Taiwan received US FDA approval to administer supplies of ibalizumab (TMB-355) made at WuXi's biologics facilities in clinical trials (see story). TMB-355 is a biologic treatment for HIV/AIDS that inhibits the virus from entering CD4 cells. WuXi says the approval is the first for a sterile biologics product manufactured in China for use under a US IND.

Disclosure: None.