SHANGHAI – Acting on an offer first announced in April, Shanghai-based Wuxi Pharmatech Inc.'s board has accepted a $3.3 billion privatization bid, effectively taking China's largest CRO off the NYSE.
SHANGHAI – Another year, another Shanghai October packed with conferences. But this time around, the angst of regulatory and reimbursement challenges has been replaced with a growing realization that the momentum of change is accelerating, even if there is considerable unease around how to make the most of it.
HONG KONG – A move by a Chinese biotech conglomerate to build a biosimilars manufacturing facility could mark a step forward in the development of the market.
HONG KONG — Japanese neurobiologists have used a mouse model of spontaneous depression to demonstrate a link between depression and the paraventricular thalamus, a region of the brain not previously linked to depression, a finding that could lead to the development of new antidepressive therapies.
Sun Biomedical Ltd., of West Perth, Australia, added a fourth site to its phase II study into the safety and efficacy of DMX-200, a chronic kidney disease candidate that combines the existing drugs, irbesartan and propagermanium. The single-arm, open-label trial includes a dose-escalation phase recruiting up to 30 patients and an expansion study in which up to 30 patients will be treated at the optimal identified dose.
SHANGHAI – When Zai Lab Ltd. first came on the scene 18 months ago, nabbing global rights to two Sanofi SA assets for chronic respiratory disease, it looked like Zai would join the ranks of emerging virtual biotechs that use in-licensing to close China's unmet medical needs gap, but this time with a focus on oncology and autoimmune diseases.
SHANGHAI – Beijing-based Canbridge Life Science Inc., a biotech focused on developing Western drugs that treat China-specific diseases, has received an additional $10 million in VC financing, doubling the round it completed last year and putting the total venture financing at $20 million.
SHANGHAI – Pick an issue or an industry, China's complex problems can seem intractable with much-touted reforms dismally ineffectual. But with the power of China's top-down decision-making, there are times when the government sets a new course and far-reaching change follows swiftly if not necessarily smoothly. Over the summer, the State Council's edicts to the CFDA to fix the regulatory system by speeding up drug review times and getting better quality innovative drugs on the market looks set to have a dramatic effect on China's pharmaceutical sector.
HONG KONG — A new Chinese study showing that enhancement of the natural generation of new neurons using a biodegradable material that allows the gradual release of a neurotrophic agent could represent a novel strategy for treating spinal cord injuries (SCI). Clinical trials of the approach may be imminent.
HONG KONG – After being granted phase II trial approval in Sierra Leone last Saturday for its novel Ebola vaccine, Tianjin Cansino Biotechnology Inc. became the first Chinese vaccine company with a self-developed vaccine approved for clinical trials in a foreign country.
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