NewCo Sheds New Lights in China’s Go Global Pursuit
A new model of investing in China’s innovation?has reached its?prime time, the so-called NewCo model.
Although not new, it’s a model in which foreign venture investors pool their funds, and set up a separate?entity to develop?new drug assets licensed from Chinese drug makers.
?In exchange, the Chinese IP?holders usually get upfront payment and?equity?stakes in the NewCo.
The NewCo model is not necessarily first-in-class first, nor best-in-class better, but a reflection of the times, and a new reality of investing in China that?foreign investors must consider the flurry of risks, from?flaring up geopolitical?tensions to?US election?uncertainties.
If?we move the clock just one decade back, in the early 2010s when there had been a wave of foreign health players leaping into China’s emerging fast-growing development?fray, setting up joint ventures with local quality companies.?
Pfizer set up a new entity with Zhejiang Hisun, one of the largest active ingredient suppliers in the world. Another U.S. drug-making giant Merck chose Nanjing Simcere Pharma, a domestic leader who led the charge of developing new?therapies at the time.
The intention was to marry?Chinese manufacturing might, cost-effectiveness, and eagerness to embrace the global market with American funds, know-how, and commercial?muscles.
For instance, the Hisun-Pfizer with 51/49 stakes structure announced in 2012, was to develop, manufacture, and commercialize off-patented drugs in China and around the World. Quality and affordability, the US giant announced, would give it sufficient confidence that “our joint venture will...address the needs of more patients than ever before.”
Signed on the?sidelines of then Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s U.S.?visit, and whose opening ceremony?attended by both CEOs of the companies, the JV has aggravated?investment?of USD 295 million and hailed as a model for providing the “high-quality”?and “low-cost”?to millions in China and outside China.
Five years later, Pfizer in November 2017 sold the 49% stakes. The NY-based company followed another US pharma Merck who two years earlier divested its investment in its 51/49 JV with Simcere.
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The reasons?for the JV?dissolution are suspected to be related to Pfizer’s manufacturing issues outside China, and the resulting supply shortage.
Today, the U.S. stateside-based new company model is a new alliance of investors and drug developers, combining US VC funds with Chinese innovation, to accelerate?Chinese strength in making homegrown biotech innovations more accessible with a speed and cost advantage that is matched by few.
The time has changed, 时势造英雄, yet the fund managers are hopeful to be able to quickly capitalize?on innovations licensed from China, which is something new.
Just two decades ago, over 80% of drugs developed in China were from multinational drug companies, in 2023, 90% of new drug approvals were granted to Chinese new drug developers.
In essence, the new US-based company based on Chinese biopharma innovation belongs?to a new crop of joint ventures, independent, less a spun-off but an incubator, in which new drug assets licensed out of China are being developed in an environment?that enables it to grow and realize?its full potential.
If twelve?years ago, a vision?to bring clusters?of innovations from China to the U.S. seemed overly ambitious, Now could be?the time?to make the innovation more accessible?to patients in the U.S. and worldwide.
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