Deals and Financings

Guizhou Xinbang Pharmaceutical (SHE: 002390) paid $323 million to acquire Chinese Peptide Company, located in Hangzhou, from the nine companies that owned it (see story). In addition, Xinbang raised as much as $106 million, which it will use to expand CPC’s peptide production capacity. Founded in 1997, CPC describes itself as a high-quality, reasonable-cost maker of peptides and IVD reagents. 

FibroGen (NSDQ: FGEN) of San Francisco received a $15 million milestone from AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) for roxadustat, a novel clinical-stage treatment for anemia (see story). AstraZeneca in-licensed US and China rights for roxadustat in 2013, paying $350 million upfront and up to $450 million in milestones. In China, FibroGen is in charge of obtaining CFDA approval of roxadustat, but AstraZeneca will be responsible for marketing the drug there. FibroGen expects to submit an NDA for approval of roxadustat in China in 2016, before a planned 2018 filing in the US. 

Provectus (NYSE: PVCT), a Tennessee clinical-stage biopharma, reiterated that the company remains committed to finding a China partner for its lead molecule, PV-10, a cancer treatment (see story). In August 2014, Provectus signed a MOU with Sinopharm, a state-owned company, for China rights to PV-10. That agreement has been extended past its original 3-month limit, but it expires again next week, on May 16. Provectus said it hopes to sign a deal with Sinopharm prior to the date. 

BGI, the giant Shenzhen genomic sequencing company, struck a deal with Qiagen (NSDQ: QGEN) that allows BGI to be a reseller of Qiagen’s bioinformatics program, Ingenuity® Variant Analysis™, to all of BGI’s sequencing customers (see story). BGI customers, who will receive their sequencing data through the cloud-based platform, will be able to use Qiagen’s gene variant data and genomic interpretation applications. BGI said the addition will speed up workflow. Qiagen is a Dutch sample, assay and bioinformatics company.