Lorem Vascular, a new Australian company, will pay as much as $531 million to license southeast Asian rights to a cell therapy system from Cytori Therapeutics (NSDQ: CYTX) of San Diego (see story). The system isolates regenerative cells from the patient’s own adipose tissue. Lorem will pay $31 million upfront by buying 8 million Cytori shares at $3 each and placing a $7 million order for initial supplies. Thereafter, Lorem will pay a $10 million milestone every time it books $50 million in additional sales, until the maximum royalty of $500 million is reached. The rights cover therapeutic use of the Cytori Cell Therapy in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.

Hunan Hansen Pharmaceutical (SHE: 002412) acquired an 80% stake in Yunnan Yongzitang Pharmaceutical, a fellow TCM company (see story) for $44.8 million. Yongzitang, whose major product is rhizome gastrodiae capsules, owns seven national exclusive TCM patents, five of which have national IP. The company reported $1.6 million in profit during the first nine months of 2013.

Zhongguancun Development Group (ZDG), a state-owned science and technology investment company, signed a 45-day exclusive option for seven medical devices that are being developed by Canada’s Medical Devices Innovation Institute (MDI) (see story). The option will allow ZDG to receive only preliminary information on each device. To get more details, ZDG will have to pay an additional $7 million. To see working prototypes, ZDG must invest somewhere between $500 million and $700 million. ZDG is affiliated with Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park.

China New Enterprise Investment, a growth capital firm, will invest $25.4 million to buy additional shares in Shanghai Fudan-Zhangjiang Bio-Pharmaceutical (HK: 8231) (see story). CNEI is said to have invested $20 million SFZJ earlier this year and owned 14% of the company’s Hong Kong-listed and domestic shares before the latest investment. SFZJ is an innovative drug company that listed on the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market in 2002. 

Gansu Duyiwei Biological Pharma (SHE: 002219) acquired Sichuan Huaji Pharmaceutical, a private TCM company, for $16.6 million (see story). In 2012, Sichuan Huaji Pharma reported revenue of only $2.4 million and profit of $210,000, making the price seem very high relative to the company’s financial performance. Sichuan Huaji manufactures extraction devices for decocting TCM raw ingredients from plants.

Company News

China will not indict GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) as a corporation following the company’s China bribery scandal, according to Reuters, who talked with both government and company officials (see story). Several of its top executives – presumably including the four people already in custody – will face charges. The indictments will not reach as high as Mark Reilly, who was head of the company’s China operation at the time the alleged bribes occurred. If this scenario plays out, it will buttress GSK’s assertion that the scandal was caused by a relatively few company officials, who were operating outside of well-articulated company guidelines.

CRO/CMO News

WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX) signed an exclusive license to the Mayo Clinic's collection of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse models of prevailing cancers in the West (see story). WuXi will add these to its PDX collection of more than 500 Chinese patient-derived xenograft models. Putting the two model groups together, WuXi can offer its clients greater support for discovery of personalized cancer drugs that target global markets.

Trials and Approvals

Shanghai Sundise TCM Co. announced results from a US Phase II double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial of a TCM product, Fuzheng Huayu tablet (FZHY) (see story). FZHY, which treats liver fibrosis, was tested in chronic hepatitis C patients who have moderate to severe fibrosis. The drug was safe, well-tolerated and tended to stabilize or improve liver fibrosis, according to Sundise. To date, specific data from the trial has not been released.

Disclosure: none.