Deals and Financings

New Century Healthcare, which operates three pediatric clinics and recently acquired a women's hospital, all in Beijing, was approved to stage a $100 million IPO on the Hong Kong exchange (see story). The company will use 40% of the proceeds to buy one hospital and five clinics in tier-one cities. Another 20% of the funds will be allocated to upgrading its existing clinics, along with opening a new hospital and two clinics in other tier-one cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou. The IPO is expected to take place in January 2017. 

Ascentage Pharma of China completed a $72 million Series B funding, led by SDIC Fund Management, a China state-sponsored investor (see story). Ascentage is a clinical-stage pharma focused on developing small-molecule oncology drugs with apoptosis mechanisms. Yesterday, Ascentage announced its novel Bcl-2/Bcl-XL inhibitor was approved to begin clinical trials in the US, the company's sixth molecule to start clinical development. In 2015, Ascentage raised $15.5 million in initial venture funding. 

Trials and Approvals

China's Ascentage Pharma reported two milestones for APG-1252, a novel Bcl-2/Bcl-XL inhibitor (see story). In the US, the FDA granted Investigational New Drug approval for APG-1252 as a small-cell lung cancer treatment, and in China, the CFDA accepted the IND filing for the candidate. APG-1252 is a small molecule drug with a programmed cell death process (apoptosis) mechanism. Ascentage said APG-1252 is its sixth program to enter clinical developments worldwide and its third program to start US clinical trials. Ascentage is headquartered in Hong Kong with an R&D lab in Shanghai and a lab-manufacturing facility in Taizhou's China Medical City. 

BeiGene (NSDQ: BGNE) has dosed its first patient in a China Phase I trial of BGB-A317, a PD-1 treatment for cancer (see story). The trial will enroll patients with solid tumors. BGB-A317 has already been administered to patients in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Taiwan. In the US, it is also being tested with another BeiGene cancer drug, BGB-3111, a small molecule BTK inhibitor in patients with B-Cell lymphoid malignancies. Located in Beijing, BeiGene has four molecularly-targeted and immuno-oncology drug candidates undergoing clinical trials in China, the US and elsewhere. 

Ascletis Pharma, a Hangzhou innovative drug company, reported that the CFDA accepted its new drug application for danoprevir, a direct acting agent for hepatitis C (see story). The company said its triple drug regimen for hepatitis C produced a cure rate of more than 95% in China gene type I hepatitis C patients after only 12 weeks of treatment. Ascletis will publish the data from the trial next year at the Asia-Pacific Liver Disease Society meeting. According to Ascletis, the acceptance is a big step toward launching a domestically developed small molecule antiviral drug, a milestone for itself and China. 

Company News

Crown Bioscience (TWSE: 6554), a preclinical CRO with two labs in China, added to its global footprint by announcing a new animal vivarium located in Louisiana (see story). CrownBio has developed an extensive set of Patient-Derived-Xenograft (PDX) models -- the world's largest according to the company -- to test cancer and molecular disease drug candidates. CrownBio, headquartered in California, has labs in Beijing and Taicang, North Carolina, San Diego, Indiana and the UK. Its newest facility will be an affiliate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 

Disclosure: none.