Company Spotlight

In June, Vivace Therapeutics burst its stealth bubble by announcing it had raised $40 million in venture capital (see story). In fact, the San Mateo, California company had already been in existence for two years, but deliberately kept its public profile low -- invisible, actually. The reason? Its novel science. As Sofie Qiao, PhD, President and CEO of Vivace, told ChinaBio® Today in an exclusive interview, "We stayed covert; it was really early stage and novel; we wanted to see how it turned out." Ten years ago, Dr. Qiao was CEO at LEAD Therapeutics, a company with a similar business plan: an early stage US virtual company using China CROs. But compared to LEAD, Vivace shows how much the China novel drug development ecosystem has matured in ten years.

Deals and Financings

Rodeo Therapeutics of Seattle announced a $5.9 million Series A financing put together by Accelerator Corporation with participation from investors that included WuXi AppTec (see story). Rodeo is developing small-molecule therapies to promote tissue repair. It intends to develop drugs that treat inflammatory bowel disease and increase blood cell regeneration after a bone marrow transplant. The Accelerator Corporation, located in Seattle, provides Rodeo with a corporate home and shares its CEO, Thong Le, with Rodeo. 

Nanjing Frontier Biotechnologies acquired global rights to a novel broad-spectrum HIV neutralizing antibody from The Rockefeller University of the US (see story). Frontier will combine the antibody with albuvirtide, its own long-acting anti-HIV/AIDS peptide, to treat and prevent HIV infection and AIDS. In 2016, Nanjing filed an NDA for albuvirtide with the CFDA, the world's first NDA for a long-acting HIV medicine. Financial details of the agreement between Frontier and Rockefeller University were not disclosed.  

Industry Insights

China's pharmaceutical market currently generates $110 billion of revenues, according to BizVibe, a Canadian B2B global business networking platform (see story). BizVibe, citing unspecified experts, says the figure will hit $167 billion by 2020. The website also offered a top 10 list of China pharma companies, based on a combination of each company's revenues and market capitalization. The top four companies: Shanghai Pharmaceuticals, China National Pharmaceutical Group, Hengrui Medicine and Fosun Pharma. 

Trials and Approvals

The CFDA approved a superficial radiation therapy device made by Sensus Healthcare (NSDQ: SRTS) of the US to treat and prevent keloids (see story). Keloids are raised scars formed from benign fibrous tissue. Sensus' SRT-100™ device is based on a proprietary low-energy x-ray technology. Chindex Medical, a medical device distributor owned by Fosun Pharma (SHA: 600196; HK: 2196), has been distributing the SRT-100 device in China for non-melanoma skin cancers since 2014. It plans to emphasize use of the device to prevent keloids associated with Cesarean sections. 

DelMar Pharma (NSDQ: DMPI), a Canada-US biopharma, was approved to start a China Phase II trial of its lead candidate, VAL-083, which targets glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) (see story). The trial will test VAL-083 as a first-line GBM treatment in patients with newly diagnosed MGMT-unmethylated disease. Because the trial uses a patient's MGMT status as a biomarker, it required approval from China's Human Genetic Resources Administration. DelMar is partnering new China indications for VAL-083 with Guangxi Wuzhou Pharma, which already markets the drug in China for leukemia and lung cancer.