Last week, much of the news about China’s biomedical industry came from San Diego’s BIO Convention. The “Doing Business Globally Track” of the convention paid attention to the importance that China now has for worldwide biopharma, an industry that is searching for a new business paradigm. Much of the creative energy of the participants was spent discussing the future, which is always an intriguing issue. In the workshop “Opportunities for Collaborations and Investments," the panel compared Asian countries, identifying the problems and opportunities in each (see story). According to the participants, changes in the life sciences industry in China have taken place so rapidly, it astonishes even the people who were there to see it happen. The Zhiangjiang Park in Shanghai has gone from open farmland six years ago to a completely built-out park, where rents are rising. Competition for workers is sending employee costs higher, further eroding China’s cost advantage. Meanwhile, the level of biological work is rising, a largely unrecognized fact because the resulting new drugs haven’t surfaced. When they do, the world’s perception of China’s life science industry will change again, just as it did after WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX) made its IPO on the NYSE.

A second China confab, which took place just before the BIO conference, was hosted by Burrill and BIOCOM, the Southern California BIO organization. Entitled “The Burrill India-China Life Sciences Meeting,” the conference was structured around two tracks, one for each country, with about 100 participants in each (see story). On the China track, the overall theme was the bilateral relationship between China biomedical companies and the West. Session One on the China side featured China entrepreneurs who had taken their companies through an IPO; the following panel discussed Partnering, emphasizing the need for relationships and communication; the third session looked at patent law and technology transfer differences between the US and China; and the last China-specific topic panel identified their criteria for investing in China biomedical companies.

In China last week, a major news item was released when it was announced the FDA and China had reached terms allowing the FDA to open three offices in China before the end of 2008 (see story). For Mike Leavitt, US Secretary of HHS, the purpose of the offices is broader than safety inspections alone: "We are working very closely with the [China] government to create a new strategy on the way we deal with imports," he said. "We see this office not just necessarily as an inspection group. It will be a capacity building group.”

From the joint venture news desk last week, there were announcements about three new US-China JVs. The large US-based generic drug company Alpharma (NYSE: ALO) will form a JV with Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co. (SHSE: 600267), altering their previous agreement (see story). The two companies will now establish a 51%-49% joint venture to manufacture Vancomycin, with Alpharma being the majority partner. Under an agreement signed two years ago, Alpharma was supposed to build a Vancomycin manufacturing facility on Zhejiang Hisun’s land, using the latter company’s manufacturing technology. The original agreement called for Zhejiang Hisun to receive a technology service fee based on the amount of output. The plant is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2008.

Immtech Pharmaceuticals (AMEX: IMM) and Beijing Capital Medical University (BCMU) will start a joint venture that provides contract research services (CRS) in China, specializing in drug discovery services (see story). Immtech is a newcomer to the CRS/CRO space. Its traditional focus has been on drug development, especially on treatments for infectious diseases. It is working on compounds for hepatitis C, drug-resistant Gram-positive bacteria and fungal infections. Immtech’s former lead drug candidate, pafuramidine, a treatment for AIDS-related pneumonia and African sleeping sickness, was withdrawn from clinical trials following concerns about side effects in late 2007.

Cordium Links of North Carolina established a joint venture with an unnamed Chinese organization to provide cardiac safety monitoring for trials conducted in China (see story). The joint venture, called Lawke Links, expects to provide services to multinational companies that conduct Phase I-IV trials in China. Lawke Links will be the first entity in China to offer a full range of ECG core lab services. At the same time, Lawke Links announced an exclusive relationship with Peking Union Lawke Biomedical Development Limited (PUL) to provide central lab services. It would seem that the “unnamed Chinese organization” forming the JV with Cordium is PUL, but it was not identified as such.

There was also news from the drug approval front in China last week, as China Sky One Medical (AMEX: CSY) announced the SFDA had approved an additional four products from China Sky One, which it will add to its portfolio of externally-applied products (see story). China Sky One estimated the expected market for each product between $2 million and $2.4 million. China Sky One has been expanding its offerings greatly during June. Two weeks ago, the company received approval of five new patch products. Last week, China Sky One acquired Peng Lai Jin Chuang Company, which added a portfolio of 20 approved products to China Sky One’s product list. This week it was four new approvals. What will China Sky One do next week?


Disclosure: none.