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Week in Review: Grail, an Oncology Diagnostics Company, Taps China Investors for $300 Million
Deals and Financings
Grail, a Hong Kong-US oncology diagnostics company, announced a $300 million C financing (see story). Since early 2016, Grail has raised over $1.5 billion. The company is sequencing large populations of people -- some with cancer, some without -- to discover an early blood-based diagnostic test for cancer. Grail was spun out of Illumina (NSDQ: ILMN), the gene sequencing company. Ally Bridge Group led the financing. Hillhouse Capital and 6 Dimensions Capital co-led the round. In 2017, Grail merged with Cirina, a
Shanghai Pharma (SHA: 601607; HK: 2607), together with Guangzhou Industrial Investment Fund Management, will pay $280 million to acquire Takeda's : (TSE: 4503) majority stake in their China JV, Guangdong Techpool Bio-Pharma (see story). Currently, Takeda owns 52% of Techpool. After the transaction, Shanghai Pharma will own 67% of Techpool, and the Guangzhou Fund 25% (another arm of the Fund already owns 8%). Despite the sale, Takeda remains committed to
Brii Bio, a China-US startup, raised $260 million in initial capital to bring innovative drugs to
Legend Capital, the controlling shareholder of Lenovo Group, completed a $156 million capital raise for its RMB China healthcare fund (see story). The fund will invest in innovative medicines, precise treatments, medical devices, diagnostic technologies, medical services and genetic technologies. This is the second phase of the RMB healthcare fund, which closed its first fundraising last year. The second phase will expand its investing strategy across early-stage to later-stage investments. The firm also plans to close a US dollar healthcare fund in Q3 of this year.
Pivotal bioVenture Partners China, a new early-stage VC funded by Nan Fung Life Sciences, closed its first fund with $150 million (see story). The firm plans to incubate life science companies in
WuXi Biologics (HK: 2269) will spend $60 million to build a biologics CDMO plant in
Splendris, a Shenzhen Salubris Pharma (SHZ: 2294) affiliate, acquired China rights to a novel MedAlliance cardiovascular balloon by making a $20 million investment in MedAlliance and agreeing to pay up to $10 million in milestones (see story). Selution is a clinical-stage sirolimus micro-reservoir drug-coated balloon (DCB). Splendris expects Selution's sirolimus micro-depots balloons will prove to be safer and more effective than paclitaxel-coated balloons, the current standard of care. MedAlliance is located in
Shanghai Pharma (SHA: 601607; HK: 2607) has signed a new 20-year collaboration with Milan's Bracco Imaging to develop Bracco's microbubbles technology as an ultrasound contrast agent to image tumor angiogenesis (see story). Microbubbles are already used to image cardiac cavities, large vessels and tissue vascularity. Since 2001, Bracco has collaborated with Shanghai Sine, a subsidiary of Shanghai Pharma via a JV. The new collaboration will support an innovative Shanghai Pharma immuno-oncology candidate aimed at pancreatic cancer.
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Over the past month, WuXi Biologics (HK: 2269) has announced three new manufacturing plants, two of them outside of China -- the first time it has located manufacturing plants in a foreign country (see story). The new facilities represent substantial investments: $390 million for the
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