Deals and Financings

• HitGen of Chengdu, a small molecule discovery CRO with over 60 partnerships, was approved for a $97 million IPO on Shanghai's new STAR Exchange; 
• Shenzhen Chipscreen Biosciences, a profitable company, will IPO on Shanghai's STAR Board to advance its portfolio of 14 novel small molecules; 
• Alphamab Oncology, a spinout from Suzhou Alphamab, was stage a Hong Kong IPO to develop eight bispecific oncology candidates;
• India's Cipla will own 80% of a $30 million joint venture with Jiangsu Acebright Pharma to bring Cipla's respiratory drugs to China's market;
• Chengdu New Radiomedicine Technology raised $14 million in a funding round led by a subsidiary of London healthcare investor BTG plc;
• Shanghai's Abbisko Therapeutics acquired Greater China rights to an inhibitor of immuno-suppressive cells from Boston's X4; 
• Celltrion of South Korean will form a JV with Nan Fung Group, a Hong Kong investment firm, to commercialize three Celltrion biosimilars in China;
• EdiGene, a Beijing CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing biopharma, sold its library of knockout cell lines to Abcam, a Cambridge, UK research tools company; 
• Harbour Antibodies partnered with Boston's Abveris to combine its fully-human antibody discovery technology with Abveris' therapeutic antibody services; 
• Shanghai Fosun Long March struck a deal for China rights to a lung cancer diagnostic developed by Belgium's VolitionRx;

Company News

• GenScript Biotech, a biologics CDMO, completed construction of its Nanjing biologics R&D and production center;

Trials and Approvals

• I-Mab Biopharma of Shanghai was approved to begin China Phase I trials of its fully human CD47 mAb;
• Ascentage Pharma, a Suzhou specialist in apoptosis drugs, started China trials of its novel Bcl-2 inhibitor for hematologic malignancies.