Deals and Financings

China Resources Pharmaceutical (HK: 3320) filed with the Hong Kong exchange to raise $368.5 million in an investment fund (see story). The fund will be run by its subsidiary, CR Pharm (Shantou). It will make equity investments in China pharma companies, though it was not disclosed whether the fund's character will be venture or private equity. CR Pharm, China's second-largest drugmaker, staged a $1.8 billion IPO in Hong Kong last year. Three of its subsidiaries are listed companies in China.

Chi-Med (Hutchison China MediTech) (AIM/NSDQ: HCM) announced a $262 million secondary offering of American Depository Shares (see story). Underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase an additional $39.3 million of ADSs at the offering price, bringing the total to $301.3 million. Chi-Med will use the funds to continue developing its portfolio of novel drugs, the "Innovation Platform" as the company calls it. It did not identify any specific large projects that the new capital would underwrite. Pricing of the offering has not been set.  

Maxhealth Medicine of Wuxi, China struck a deal with Switzerland's Legacy Healthcare to commercialize Legacy's CG 210 in Mainland China and Macao (see story). CG210 is a botanical treatment for hair loss that has been shown to slow the rate of hair loss. Legacy develops innovative patentable botanical drugs in oncology supportive care and dermatology. Maxhealth, which commercializes drugs and medical devices in China, made an investment in Legacy, though financial details were not disclosed.   

Trials and Approvals

Tianjin CanSino Biologics announced CFDA approval of its Ebola virus vaccine for China (see story). The vaccine was discovered by the Bioengineering Institute of the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences, which asked CanSino to be its development and commercialization Log Out partner in 2014. Two years ago, CanSino began construction of a $317 million facility to produce vaccines. The facility, which is due to be completed next year, will make the Ebola vaccine along with other CanSino vaccines (pneumonia, meningitis and tuberculosis).  

Suzhou's MabSpace Biosciences filed an IND application with the CFDA last month to begin human testing of a second-generation PD-L1 antibody (see story). MSB2311 is the world's first PD-L1 candidate with pH-dependent antigen binding property. In addition MapSpace has built a portfolio of six immune-oncology antibodies to work in combination with MSB2311. MapSpace owns global rights to MSB2311, its lead candidate.

Denovo Biopharma, a San Diego-Beijing company, announced approval from the FDA to conduct a US Phase III trial of its lead drug in patients with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) (see story). The same trial (ENGINE) is already approved in China. Previously, DB102 failed to meet its endpoints in a Phase III trial that also enrolled DLBCL patients. However, the company conducted a post-hoc examination of the data, which showed efficacy in a subset of the trial's patients who shared a novel biomarker, DGM1 (Denovo Genomic Marker 1).

Transgene (Euronext: TNG) reported its therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine was safe and promoted immunogenicity in a Phase I/Ib trial (see story). A JV formed by France's Transgene and China's Tasly Pharma (SHA: 600535) has filed for CFDA approval to begin clinical trials of TG1050 in China. With a single dose, TG1050 provoked a specific immune response in the first cohort of patients treated. The TG1050 immunotherapy was administered as an addition to a standard antiviral regimen, which can take as long as 15 years to cure hepatitis B.

BeyondSpring (NSDQ: BYSI) of New York enrolled the first patient in the China arm of a global Phase II/III clinical trial of plinabulin for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) (see story). Earlier this year, plinabulin started a China Phase III clinical trial as a immuno-oncology agent in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. BeyondSpring expects to report top line results later in 2017 from the Phase II portion of the neutropenia trial.

Disclosure: none.