Biotech, don't want to grow up

On September 19, Kewang Pharmaceutical and Yaoming Bio jointly announced that Yaoming Bio will cooperate with Kewang Pharmaceutical to absorb the latter's Suzhou process development and trial production facilities, while ensuring the development and production of its global innovative pharmaceutical pipeline lines need.

Kewang was established in 2017, and the main antibody macromolecular drug. At the end of 2019, Kewang's loan was used for the construction of Suzhou GMP production base. Fifteen months later, the plant was officially completed and used for the middle test production. Public information shows that Kewang's Suzhou factory facilities have an area of ​​5,500 square meters and a production scale of 1,000 liters. About 20 batches of drugs for clinical trials can be produced each year.

When the factory was completed, Kewang CEO Ji Xiaohui once said that the completion of the Suzhou Craft Development and China Test Base was "the first step towards industrialization." However, until now, Kewang has no self -developed product listing. The industrialized base used to test the production of medication must be sold.

Kewang is just a microcosm of the ambitious Biotech industry. From research and development to production to sales, once every pharmaceutical entrepreneur wants to build Pfizer or Hengrui; now, many things have changed.

Once looking forward to listing, now choosing "weight loss"

Before the news of abandoning the Suzhou factory, Kewang's development momentum has always been good.

Kewang's R & D mainly takes two routes: one is dual anti -drug, and the other is the development of new targets. At present, Kewang has 15 R & D pipelines, including popular targets such as VEGF, PD-L1, 4-1BB, and new targets such as LAG-3, Lilrb2, CLDN18.2.

Looking at the world, one of the core varieties of Kewang -VEGF/DLL4 dual resistance is only three foreign companies such as Albervi. This is the fastest progress in the company's research and development projects and has entered Phase II clinical. Another 4-1BB/PD-L1 dual anti-domestic layout includes Tiandong Biology, Corly Corten Pharmaceutical, Deqi Pharmaceutical, etc. Kewang is also among them.

Picture source: Kewang Pharmaceutical Official Website

In general, Kewang Pharmaceuticals progressed in the field of double resistance. The company's founders Ji Xiaohui and Lu Hongtao are all senior people who have decades of industry experience in the field of biomedicine. Ji Xiaohui was the head of the Roche Global Cooperation Department, and later served as a risk partner in the Risi Asian Fund in Kewang.

During the five years, Kewang completed four rounds of financing, with a cumulative $ 251 million. The company's official website shows that Kewang's internal architecture has set up the secretary and investor relationship department, which is a quasi -listing appearance. According to the Suzhou Industrial Park, Kewang had planned to land on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2021. The market value is expected to exceed $ 1 billion, and the valuation is expected to increase by 30%per year after listing.

However, in just one year, Kewang came out of the news that gave up the Suzhou plant.

Regarding the sudden change of Kewang, Jianzhi Bureau asked Ji Xiaohui to verify and did not get a response. Kewang Bio officials did not explain this.

Although Kewang announced 9 key R & D pipelines, five items were clinically clinically clinically in the clinic. When the Suzhou base was completed, Ji Xiaohui introduced: In 2025, Kewang will usher in the first product.

Even if Ji Xiaohui estimates as optimistic, Kewang's realization of product returns will be a matter of three years. At present, the financing environment of the biomedical industry is not good, can Kewang still have the fifth round of financing? Can you go public as soon as possible? It's hard to say.

The cost of self -built factories in biomedical companies is expensive. GMP production, equipment management, and EHS formation have been added up, and the funds invested are hundreds of millions. In order to build a factory, Kewang Biological signed a bank loan contract of 150 million yuan. This alone accounts for about 10%of the total financing funds.

After May 2021, Kewang did not disclose any new financing, and choosing "weight loss" was a step that Kewang had to take. A large investment in the production base is currently idle, and it is also fierce to compete in the CDMO business outside the outside. It seems too much to produce its own products.

Selling Yaoming creatures can be the most suitable choice.

Biotech is no longer brutal growth

In the past few years, China's biomedical industry's financing environment has been loose, which has forgotten everyone, and spending money is casual.

Since June 2021, the biomedical sector has continued to decline, which has triggered tightening investment in the first -level market. The biomedical industry is experiencing difficulties. "How to get financing" is a problem for all pharmaceutical companies. The money in your hand must be spent on the blade.

Don't Biotech want to be Biopharma? Certainly not.

Kewang's choice is likely to be forced by pressure, which may be one of the epitome of the return of the BIOTECH industry.

The core of innovative pharmaceutical companies is product innovation. Of course, it is best to control the entire link of "research and sales", but not every company must make the entire industry chain. Many small and medium -sized pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the United States are focusing on R & D, production and sales to third parties, and some of them are dominated by development results. Each company builds a large -scale production line, which is not the rule of industry development.

In fact, Kewang's BD cooperation is active. Kewang Vegf/DLL4 dual -resistant introduction was introduced from Trigr therapreutics in the United States; the OX40 agonist at the research also chose to cooperate with Junshi Biological Development.

Not only BIOTECH, but also a large pharmaceutical factory when there are contraction front. In 2015, the State Drug Administration issued the "Principles of the Technical Guidance of Biological Research and Development and Evaluation (Trial)", which were largely put into the production of biological drugs. In September of that year, Pfizer signed a contract with Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone and invested 350 million US dollars. It was claimed to be Pfizer's "the largest overseas investment project since 2008" and "the third and Asia's first biotechnology center". As a result, this base did not produce a biological medicine, and in 2021, he was sold to Yaoming creatures.

Pfizer's selling factory is also due to major changes in the market. Pfizer originally planned to introduce similar medicines such as Twozumab, Bevarzab, and Adam Mipoid in Hangzhou Base, but several drugs were not approved in China; in 2019, Bai Outai, Qilu Pharmaceutical and Revitalized Similar biological medicines produced by Hong Hanlin have been listed. Pfizer has a production base, but there is no product, and finally choose to sell the base.

In the final analysis, building factories are much easier than R & D products; the introduction of the biomedical industry in various places value the construction of production bases; when listing, investment will be much better than the full investment perception. These may be the reason why domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies are keen to build their own production bases.

When the funds are sufficient, open the source when the environment is not good. For the entire industry, Biotech, Biopharma, and CXO form a cooperation mechanism. It is not a good thing.

Writing | Yang Xixia

Edit ｜ Jiang Yun Jia Ting

Operation | Xiaoxi

Picture Source | Visual China

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