To improve the layout of rare diseases, can the new company invested by Wuxi apptec realize its "Huawei dream"?

On February 18, Wuxi apptec announced that eight investors, including phase I of its wholly-owned subsidiary, pharmaceutical fund and general Atlantic, signed a subscription agreement for preferred shares with Canbridge pharmaceutical Inc (hereinafter referred to as "Beihai Kangcheng") and other interested parties According to the announcement, phase I of YaoMing fund intends to subscribe for 1692100 new preferred shares issued by Beihai Kangcheng, with a subscription amount of US $20 million; meanwhile, Beihai Kangcheng will issue a warrant to Yaoming fund phase I that can subscribe for Beihai Kangcheng shares in the future, and Yaoming fund phase I has the right to subscribe for Beihai Kangcheng preferred shares within the price range of up to US $10 million Upon the completion of this round of investment, Wuxi apptec holds 13.11% of Beihai Kangcheng shares (on the basis of full dilution and conversion), of which 5.61% is held by its wholly-owned subsidiary wuxiapptec (Hong Kong) Limited, and 7.50% is held by phase I of Wuxi apptec fund It is understood that Beihai Kangcheng and its subsidiaries were founded in 2012 as the first innovative platform pharmaceutical technology company focusing on the creation of rare disease drugs It has a number of rare disease product pipelines Two tumor products, CommScope ® and nalatinib, have been listed in mainland China and Hong Kong, China respectively In addition, hunterase ® products for the treatment of Hunt syndrome are in the stage of new drug approval The funds raised in this round are mainly used to accelerate and expand the pipeline of rare disease products originally researched and introduced by Beihai Kangcheng, further expand the business operation platform and capacity, and increase the working capital According to yaomingkant, China has a greater unmet demand for rare diseases than for common diseases The company recognizes Beihai Kangcheng as a leading pharmaceutical enterprise in the field of rare diseases in China, and investment in Beihai Kangcheng is an important investment measure of the company in the market of rare diseases in China Through this transaction, Wuxi apptec will further improve its ecosystem layout in the field of rare diseases In fact, for rare diseases, compared with transnational pharmaceutical enterprises, domestic pharmaceutical enterprises generally lack enthusiasm in R & D, which is also determined by China's national conditions First of all, the recognition of rare diseases still needs to be improved in China Although as early as 2018, the national health and Health Commission issued the catalogue of the first batch of rare diseases in China (gwyf [2018] No 10), in which the national health and Health Commission recorded 121 diseases such as albinism, this document issued by the health and Health Commission is the first official catalogue of rare diseases in China, and it is clear The explanation is "the first batch", leaving a lot of room for imagination After the release of the document, the pharmaceutical market shook a lot What's more, as far as the rare diseases in China are concerned, the possibility of their therapeutic drugs being included in the medical insurance is still smaller than that of some drugs with larger patient base, which is also determined by the medical insurance system of our country The purpose of setting up the medical insurance fund is to ensure the perfection of the basic drugs The reason why rare diseases are called rare is that the patient base is too small to meet the medical requirements The original intention of the establishment of the insurance fund Moreover, because the patient base is too small, the time for most pharmaceutical companies to develop such drugs to recover costs is correspondingly prolonged, so the enthusiasm of enterprise research and development is insufficient in the long run, thus forming a vicious circle In addition, according to incomplete statistics, at present, there are only more than 40 kinds of drugs for the treatment of rare diseases in the world, most of which are still in the state of no medicine to treat, so in this case, rare diseases are not only a medical problem, but also a social problem Kitami Yasunari is also a local innovative medicine company focusing on rare drug research and development in China Its founder Xue Qun was Sanofi jianzan's first general manager in China Jianzan is mainly responsible for Sanofi's business of rare diseases, tumors and special immunodrugs in developed markets At present, the development plan of Beihai Kangcheng is to transition from tumor drug to "tumor drug + rare disease drug" platform In fact, at present, domestic enterprises interested in research and development of rare disease treatment drugs have more or less the background of working in large multinational pharmaceutical enterprises For example, Shanghai Zhongqiang pharmaceutical industry, which has laid out the orphan drug market, is divided into prostaglandin, orphan drug series and anti hepatitis C Series in its pipeline layout Its founding team mainly comes from Roche The founder Dr Ren Yi was Gao of Roche China R & D center Director level In the announcement, Wuxi apptec said that it recognized the position of Beihai Kangcheng as a leading pharmaceutical enterprise in the field of rare diseases in China, and the investment in Beihai Kangcheng was an important investment measure of the company in the market of rare diseases in China Through this transaction, Wuxi apptec will further improve its ecosystem layout in the field of rare diseases It can be seen that the intention of Wuxi apptec is to create an ecosystem As we all know, as the leader of cro enterprises in China, Wuxi apptec has obvious advantages in R & D compared with other domestic pharmaceutical enterprises This marriage with Beihai apptec is bound to enhance its voice in this field nationwide At present, when there is no sign of R & D of rare diseases in various enterprises, Wuxi apptec Kant's horse running enclosure at this time also belongs to doing his homework in advance and keeping the leading position From "Foxconn" to "Huawei", in fact, the current industry evaluation of Wuxi apptec is mostly "Foxconn in the pharmaceutical industry", which means that Wuxi apptec is an enterprise committed to pharmaceutical outsourcing, but this evaluation is really unfair to Wuxi apptec In fact, there are only a handful of companies that do innovative drugs in China Up to now, China still lags far behind the overseas giants in the field of innovative drugs At present, Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd has suspended the research and development of generic drugs, but according to its published financial statements, the income proportion of generic drugs is still the majority, while Fosun Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd is an enterprise with strong domestic investment attribute Therefore, Wuxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd may be the company with the closest distance between the whole A-share and the giant international innovative drugs The reason why Wuxi apptec is closest to the international innovation drug giants is that they are all on its customer list Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Lilly and MSD, the pharmaceutical giants, are its top five customers Through the cooperation with multinational giants, the R & D strength of Wuxi apptec has been improved accordingly According to the 2019 half year report of Wuxi apptec, its layout idea mainly focuses on the whole industrial chain, running through drug discovery, pre clinical development, clinical research, and commercial production and other links In terms of main business, Wuxi apptec can be divided into four parts: laboratory services in China, cdmo / CMO services, laboratory services in the United States, clinical research and other cro services And with the pace of IPO in China, Chinese pharmaceutical R & D market has become one of the focus of Wuxi apptec As of June 30, 2019, Wuxi apptec has completed the ind application for 65 projects for domestic pharmaceutical enterprises, and obtained the clinical trial approval documents for 45 projects In the first half of this year, there were as many as 10 ind applications for new research drugs, and 11 clinical trial approvals (CTA) were obtained It can be seen that while doing a good job in traditional cro business, Wuxi apptec has put its new drug R & D in an important position, including investing in innovative companies with potential and strength Beihai Kangcheng is the latest example It can be said that the ambition of Wuxi apptec is not to continue to be "Foxconn in the pharmaceutical industry", but to focus on improving its R & D strength and become“ Huawei in medicine.