WeDoctor, Mason Group and Aldworth Management agreed to pay up to $510 million to acquire an 89.5% stake in Genea, an Australian fertility treatment company (see story). Genea's assisted reproductive technologies are used in more than 600 clinics across 60 countries. Earlier this year, the three-company consortium formed a Hong Kong IVF clinic called Reproductive Healthcare. Mason Group merged its Reproductive Healthcare subsidiary with The Women’s Clinic and brought in WeDoctor, an online China healthcare portal owned by Tencent (HK: 0700), and Aldworth Management as strategic investors.  

Huadong Medicine (SHZ: 000963) has proposed a $210 million takeover of Britain's Sinclair Pharma (L: SPH) (see story). Sinclair, which makes several aesthetic skin treatments, has agreed to the proposed terms, though Huadong has until early October to make a formal offer. The possibility of a deal was originally announced in early July, and Huadong has requested three extensions of the 30-day window before arriving at an agreement. Sinclair offers its products in Britain and other western countries, though not in China.  

Harbour BioMed completed an $85 million Series B financing, which it will use to advance its pipeline that includes both clinical and discovery stage programs (see story). GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, led the financing. Formed in late 2016, Harbour started with an initial $50 million in capital and immediately acquired Harbour Antibodies BV, a Dutch company with two proprietary transgenic mouse platforms, though Harbour has been actively in-licensing drug development projects. The company is headquartered in Boston, with R&D operations in Shanghai and the antibody platform in Rotterdam.  

Jacobio Pharma, a Beijing clinical-stage biotech, raised $55 million in a C funding led by Qiming and Hillhouse (see story). The company's lead asset, a small molecule oncology drug, has started a US Phase I trial in patients with solid tumor cancers and has been approved to begin a similar trial in China. Jacobio said it has ten projects in development. It is focused on innovative drugs for unmet needs in China and abroad, especially for cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases.  

China Pioneer Pharma Holdings (HK: 1345), a medical device distributor, paid $33.2 million for a 15% stake in Australia's Paragon Care (ASX:PGC), a medical device maker (see story). The two companies plan to cross-sell products in their respective markets. Paragon said it would use the cash to fund acquisitions of healthcare businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Pioneer has not previously been involved in the Australia or New Zealand drug distribution markets.  

Shenzhen Lachesis mHealth raised $29 million in a B Round led by GTLA to develop its smart healthcare and mobile health technologies (see story). The company's major product is the Intelligent Hospital Ward System, a medical device that includes a diagnosis and treatment assistant, wireless monitoring and other services to improve patient care. Lachesis's product targets the post-acute-care market in general hospitals.  

RootPath Genomics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-Hangzhou startup, completed a $7 million seed funding to support its synthetic biology, CRISPR gene editing and single-cell sequencing operations (see story). The company aims to improve immuno-therapies by identifying the T-cells that are most likely to fight the tumor. RootPath was launched last year with capital from Nest.Bio, an incubator. The current seed financing was led by Sequoia China and joined by Volcanics Venture, BV (Baidu Ventures) and Nest.Bio Ventures. 

Ping An Good Doctor (HK: 1833), a healthcare app, formed a strategic partnership with Jointown Pharma (SHA: 600998), a combination of Good Doctor's online presence with Jointown's offline drug distribution network and retail pharmacies (see story). The two companies intend to consolidate their resources to establish an "internet + healthcare + medicine" service chain. They also plan to build Smart Pharmacies that include monitoring, smart consultation, electronic prescriptions, drug vending machines and electronic insurance payments.  

Strategia Holdings of Boston partnered with JS InnoPharm (Shanghai) to develop drugs for global markets (see story). Strategia forms partnerships on its drug projects, using small groups of experts, rather than developing candidates in-house. Its goals are to cut costs and speed up timelines to develop new products at a low cost. The two companies will collaborate on multiple therapeutic projects for global markets, though no specific details were released.  

Trials and Approvals 

Beijing's BeiGene (Nasdaq: BGNE; HKEX: 06160) reported the National Medical Products Administration of China (NMPA, formerly known as CFDA or CDA) has accepted the company's new drug application for tislelizumab, a PD-1 antibody, as a treatment for relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma (see story). In a pivotal Phase II trial, tislelizumab produced an 87% overall response rate and a 61% complete response rate at a median of eight months follow up.  

CStone Pharma, a two-year old Shanghai-Suzhou biopharma, reported the CNDA approved its IND application for CS1002, a CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody (see story). With the approval, CStone claims to be the only China biopharma with clinical trials underway of all three major immuno-oncology products -- PD-L1, PD-1 and CTLA-4. In May, CStone announced a record-breaking $260 million Series B financing. The company is currently developing a portfolio of 14 oncology drugs, eight of them in clinical development and three in registration trials.  

CRO/CMO News 

XingImaging, a US-China PET CRO, said it will provide neurological PET scans to support a Phase III trial of a proposed Essai (TYO: 4523) Alzheimer's therapy in China (see story). The company is forming a Florbetapir PET radiotracer production network for China trials of elenbecestat, a Beta-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor. Eisai is currently conducting its global AD trial of elenbecestat in patients with mild Alzheimer's.