Deals and Financings

Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology, a company that makes medical products from absorbable biomedical materials, announced plans to raise as much as $305 million in an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (see story). The company will use 25% of the proceeds to update its production facilities and another 25% for acquisitions of other biomedical material companies. The company has a portfolio of 14 biomedical products, three of which are drugs and the rest Class III medical devices. 

WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX), the China-US CRO/CMO, deepened its commitment to genomics by making a $15 million investment in DNAnexus, a California company with a cloud-based genomic informatics platform (see story). WuXi and DNAnexus will partner to allow web-based access to the genomic services of another WuXi subsidiary, WuXi NextCode Genomics, providing NextCode's proprietary database infrastructure along with its clinical and research tools on the DNAnexus cloud. The partnership helps WuXi accomplish one of its major goals: to create an open access platform that offers all of its CRO services to researchers anywhere in the world. 

Kunming Biomed International (KBI) of southwest China formed a collaboration with BTS Research (BTS) of San Diego that gives BTS an exclusive license to import and distribute KBI’s non-human primates in the western United States (see story). The agreement, signed during the ChinaBio® Partnering Forum held in Shanghai on April 15-16, 2015, also provides a platform for the two firms to co-market each other’s research services, enabling each company to provide a broad range of CRO services in China and the US. 

Aliyun, the cloud computing subsidiary of China's online giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), will work with two other China companies to build China's first cloud hospital (see story). While the combination of a virtual company and the very physical world of hospitals may seem contradictory, the new hospital will initially use the cloud for fairly mundane purposes: setting up patients' appointments and making payments, though the system will also facilitate the use of "big data" in healthcare. DHC Software will develop the cloud hospital platform, which will be marketed by Xi'an International Medical Investment. 

2015 ChinaBio Partnering Forum

The ChinaBio® Partnering Forum 2015 brought a record 858 internationally-focused life science executives and investors to Shanghai last week (see story). The event, held April 15–16, is China’s premier life science partnering event for dealmakers interested in cross-border partnerships that will enable them to gain access to China’s rapidly growing healthcare market.

At the recent ChinaBio® Partnership Forum, innovation in drug development was a major theme.  But individual companies seem to have different conceptions of the word "innovation" as it applies to China drug development (see story). For example, to some, it is a relative term; to others, it is a constant anywhere around the globe. BioWorld, the ThomsonReuters newsletter, presented the various perspectives on innovation expressed by major players at the conference. 

A Plenary Panel at the ChinaBio® Partnership Forum discussed innovative biologic drugs, with CEOs of four China biotechs participating, a discussion that inevitably brought up biosimilars. The panel members recognized that developing innovative molecules is difficult without also producing biosimilars. China biotechs need a twin strategy to survive (see story). Nevertheless, innovative biotech drugs, developed in China, will become a major factor in China's market. BioWorld, the ThomsonReuters newsletter, summarized the panel discussion in an article, which we reprinted.

Trials and Approvals

Uni-Bio Science Group Limited (HK: 690) filed a New Drug Application with the CFDA for China approval of Uni-PTH, the company's proprietary treatment for osteoporosis (see story). Uni-PTH is a 34 amino acid analogue of parathyroid hormone (PTH) that controls the level of calcium and phosphorus in the blood and vitamin D in the kidney. Founded in 2001, Uni-Bio is headquartered in Hong Kong with operations in China. The CFDA has accepted the application. 

Company News

PPD, the US-based CRO, opened a central laboratory in Shanghai at the Shanghai Clinical Research Center (see story). It joins similar PPD units in the US, Belgium and Singapore which provide identical services. In 2009, PPD acquired Excel PharmaStudies, a China clinical stage CRO, and then BioDuro, a CRO offering preclinical services in Beijing and Shanghai, establishing its presence in China. The SCRC is a 3rd-party full-service assessment and resource center that was formed in 2008 by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Shanghai's municipal government to facilitate clinical trials in China. 

Disclosure: none.