Recent Articles in Industry Insights

In 2020, investment in China life science showed stellar growth. ChinaBio®'s survey  shows four of the five investment categories set new records, often doubling the year-earlier comparison, while the fifth, Mergers & Acquisitions, fell for the second year in a row: 

• VC/PE Fundraising: $56.1 billion; 2.3 times 2019;
• VC/PE Investments: $28.5 billion; 2.0 times 2019;
• IPOs: $23.3 billion; 2.9 times 2019;
• Partnering: $30.5 billion; 1.7 times 2019;
• Mergers and Acquisitions: $9.7 billion; a 60% drop from 2019.

Between VC/PE investors and IPOs, there is a lot of capital available to young life science companies, which may explain why M&A underperformed so dramatically. With so much capital support readily available, owners of young life science companies have little reason to merge or sell their companies to competitors. More details....

China's biopharma industry continued to grow at a rapid pace in 2020, in spite of the formidable obstacle presented by COVID-19. Panelists at the China Showcase, a virtual event preceding the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, believe the sector is strong, spurring record-setting levels of investments, partnerships and initial public offerings. Just as important, they expect the growth to continue.  “The first half of 2020 was a stellar year for venture capital and innovative life sciences companies in China, and 2021 is on track to set new records across the board,” said moderator Greg Scott, founder and chairman of the ChinaBio® Group. More details....

On Monday, Illumina offered $8 billion to acquire GRAIL, an Illumina spin-out dedicated to early cancer testing. Early on, GRAIL merged with Cirina, a Hong Kong company that had developed the novel technology that GRAIL used as the cornerstone for its cancer test. Cirina was backed by Decheng Capital, a healthcare venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley and Shanghai. In an exclusive interview, Min Cui, PhD, Founder and Managing Partner of Decheng, told ChinaBio® Today about Decheng's long history with Cirina and how the company came to be part of the $8 billion Illumina-GRAIL deal. More details....

Stock Symbol: (NSDQ: ILMN)

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On February 14, AmCham Shanghai’s Healthcare Committee held a conference call to discuss the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic on China healthcare businesses (see original article). Ten executives participated in the call, noting (among other issues) that distribution has been adversely affected, staff shortages are widespread, patient visits to hospitals are paradoxically lower, and revenues would be affected in the first quarter and possibly beyond. The discussion was moderated by ChinaBio's Greg Scott, the Chair of AmCham Shanghai’s Healthcare Committee, and participating companies included big pharmas, private hospitals, medical devices, diagnostics and medical supply companies. AmCham Shanghai printed a summary of the discussion, which ChinaBio® Today has reprinted with their permission.

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In China, 67% of biotech companies focus on oncology, and most of them are developing a PD-1/PD-L1 candidate. There are 45 companies working on PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies with more than 100 clinical trials underway as of March this year, according to Frank Jiang, CEO of CStone Pharma. Dr. Jiang spoke as a panelist at the Chinatrials 12 Summit held in Shanghai recently. In the panel discussion, written up in BioWorld, Participants were asked how China biotech companies with PD-1/PD-L1 candidates could differentiate their products with so many PD-1/PD-L1 candidates in development. More details....

Stock Symbol: (HK: 2616)

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