Deals and Financings

Wuxi AppTec, China's largest CRO/CMO, has begun the application process for an IPO on a China exchange (see story). Previously, the company was rumored to favor a reverse-merger transaction, which is generally considered a short-cut alternative to the long wait of an official China IPO. But WuXi has announced it will seek an A-Share listing in RMB, and that it has enlisted Huatai United Securities to shepherd the company through the process. In January, WuXi filed to list WuXi Biologics on the Hong Kong exchange at a $1.5 billion valuation, and its small molecule manufacturing subsidiary, SynTheAll, has been listed on China's OTC Third Board since 2014.

ShangPharma will combine all of its CRO/CMO operations under the ChemPartner name and merge the entity, sometime in the future, with a public company (see story). The merger will list the CRO/CMO operations on either the Shanghai or Shenzhen exchange. ShangPharma did not disclose whether ShangPharma intends to be the surviving company. However, ShangPharma is holding back at least two of its divisions from ChemPartner: ShangPharma Technologies, which enables new technologies, and ShangPharma Investments, which invests in new drug therapies. 

Sihuan Pharma (HK: 00460), headquartered in Beijing, will pay $160 million to acquire Ambest Pharma of China, a maker of large volume injection products (see story). Ambest offers saline (sodium chloride) injections along with TCM and standard chemical products. Since its $742 million Hong Kong IPO in 2010, Sihuan has been an active participant in China pharma M&A while also developing a robust R&D pipeline. The company invests as much as 10% of its revenues in R&D, and at one point two years ago, Sihuan claimed to have a pipeline of 14 novel China Class 1.1 drugs in development. 

C-Bridge Capital and Tasly Holding, a TCM company, have teamed up to invest $150 million in two young China biopharmas, which will be merged into a single entity as part of the investment (see story). The two existing companies are Shanghai's Tianjing Biopharma and Tianjin's Tianzhenshi Biotechnology. The merged companies, whose new name was not disclosed, will jointly hold twelve antibody drug candidates. With $700 million under management, C-Bridge led a $100 million investment in HCV company Ascletis two months ago. 

Haoeyou, an internet-based remote medical service provider that links China patients with US doctors, has raised $40 million in a Series A round (see story). Haoeyou offers on-line, video consultations with US healthcare professionals and also supports medical tourism visits to the US. The company claims to have 1,000 health professionals signed up. The funding was led by Hakim Unique Internet Company, a Shenzhen-listed Chinese smart building and smart city services provider. Haoeyou is affiliated with the California Healthcom Group of Los Angeles. 

HitGen, a Chengdu hit identification/lead generation CRO, announced a collaboration with Merck/MSD (NYSE: MRK), which will discover novel chemical leads for multiple targets designated by Merck (see story). Using its core technology platform, HitGen will screen its large library (over ten billion novel small molecules) for candidates. Leads will be licensed exclusively to Merck. HitGen will receive an upfront payment and be eligible for milestone payments. One month ago, HitGen signed a similar deal with the Cancer Research UK for lung cancer targets. 

A group of China investment companies closed their acquisition of Angiotech Pharma, a company that makes medical devices for wound closures and ophthalmology (see story). Angiotech, which makes branded, private label and OEM products, is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada and operates globally, including in China. Investors expect to expand the company's China operations. The acquisition was led by Vivo Capital, a US-China life science investor, and ZQ Capital of Hong Kong. The purchase price was not disclosed. 

Trials and Approvals

Tarrex Biopharma, a San Diego-Xiamen biopharma, reported that the US FDA approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for TX803, a novel treatment for colorectal cancer (see story). Tarrex licensed global rights to TX803 and related IP from the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego. Privately owned Tarrex has an office in San Diego and a research facility in Xiamen. Xiaokun Zhang, PhD, Cofounder and Chief Scientific Advisor to Tarrex, is Dean of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Xiamen University and Professor at Sanford-Burnham.

Government and Regulatory

China's FDA is circulating a draft proposal that would speed up China approval of novel foreign drugs (see story). Under the new rules, if a drug's IND is already approved in another country, it would be exempted from filing a China IND/CTA request before starting China clinical trials. The change has important implications for multinational global trials. The new rules would allow a pharma to implement a China arm of a global trial without waiting for the CFDA to approve an IND/CTA. Because IND/CTA approvals can take as long as two years in China, China was often not included in global trials, as pharmas could not afford to put large, important trials on hold while they waited for the CFDA to issue an IND/CTA ruling. 

Disclosure: none