China’s State Council has increased its effort to attract foreign direct capital investments, especially for biotech investors. The government has issued a 24-point list of guidelines that establishes the areas of major focus where investors are likely to find opportunities. It specifically singled out biotechnology investments as a major goal, promising to facilitate investments, issue business visas and offer tax incentives for foreign businesses with an aim to “improve the business environment for foreign investors and boost foreign direct investment (FDI).” At the same time, the US is restricting some China investments, though its emphasis is on national security. More details....

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EQRx, a Cambridge, MA company, will change its business plan; the company will no longer in-license China-developed drugs for western markets, hoping to sell them at up to a 50% discount from the competition. EQRx will return rights to CStone Pharma for sugemalimab (a PD-L1 candidate) and nofazinlimab (a PD-1 antibody), and it will also give back rights to a JAK1 inhibitor from Lynk Pharmaceuticals. The company’s business plan may have become infeasible when the US FDA refused to approve a China-developed PD-1 drug based only on China trial data. Lilly acquired the candidate from Suzhou Innovent. More details....

Stock Symbol: (NSDQ: EQRX)

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China’s two stock exchanges, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have liberalized the rules allowing Hong Kong listed companies to add a China listing. The Shanghai and Shenzhen--Hong Kong Stock Connect program, launched in 2014 and 2016, links mainland China’s stock exchanges with their Hong Kong counterpart. Under the new rules, there are 17 biopharmas listed in Hong Kong, none of them profitable, now eligible for a listing on the Shanghai STAR Board or the ChiNext Exchange in Shenzhen, according to a Pharma DJ article. More details....

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Sino Biopharm was approved to close its $161 million all-cash acquisition of F-Star, a Cambridge, UK company that develops bispecific antibodies. The purchase didn't look like would happen after it was held up for nine months by the US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which aims to slow China’s acquisition of advanced US technologies. F-Star, which has a NASDAQ listing and a US subsidiary in Cambridge, MA, develops bispecific drugs for immunotherapies using tetravalent (2+2) bispecific antibodies. More details....

Stock Symbols: (HK: 1177) (NSDQ: FSTX)

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China is planning to prohibit any export from biotech companies engaged in certain cutting-edge sectors -- cell cloning and gene editing technology for human use along with restrictions on the export of CRISPR gene editing technology and synthetic biology technology. Officially, the ban is in limbo during a public comment phase, though the edict will probably not change significantly. The proposed China export ban follows the 2022 US law that supported semiconductor chip manufacturing in the US and restricted export of the most powerful chips to China. More details....

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