Oramed Secures Toehold in China With $52M Investment From Chinese Firm
July 2, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
JERUSALEM – Wuzhou Zhongheng Group Co Ltd, a Chinese investment firm, is acquiring a 10 percent stake in Israel-based Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc. and exclusive rights to distribute the company’s insulin products in China, Reuters reported this morning.
Wuzhou Zhongheng will invest $52 million in Oramed, according to reports. This is not the first partnership between the pharmaceutical company and Wuzhou Zhongheng. Guangxi Wuzhou Zhongheng Group Company Ltd is an investment holding company publicly traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In December the Chinese group acquired $5 million of Oramed stock.
The company said the cash infusion would be used for clinical trials of ORMD-0801, an oral insulin product, and development of its oral GLP-1 analog project, also for diabetes, ChinaBio reported.
“China offers a substantial market opportunity for our diabetes focused pipeline and we are delighted to have Wuzhou as a supportive shareholder, as they can help strategically guide our development and commercial entrance into China,” Nadav Kidron, Oramed’s chief executive officer said in a statement following the stock purchase.
Diagnoses of type 2 diabetes have increased substantially in China over the past three decades. There is an estimated 100 million people in China living with diabetes, Medscape reported. Eleven percent of adults in China have diabetes, while 50 percent have prediabetes, which means there is a ripe market for Oramed’s products.
Oramed’s stock was up slightly this morning following news of the Chinese firm’s 10 percent acquisition of the company. The stock was trading at $6.52 per share.
Oramed’s pipeline consists of four drug candidates for the treatment of diabetes, ORMD-0801 for treatments of types 1 and 2 diabetes, ORMD-0901, also known as GLP-1¸ for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, as well as a combination therapy of insulin and GLP-1 analogs.
Earlier this week Oramed announced it submitted the study protocol for the company's Phase IIb trial of ORMD-0801, its oral insulin capsule, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The submission was made under the company's existing Investigational New Drug (IND) application. The Phase IIb study ofORMD-0801 for type 2 diabetics is designed to generate ample data for both efficacy and safety endpoints. The double-blind, randomized study will recruit approximately 180 patients and has a 28-day treatment period.
“This pivotal study is a huge step for Oramed, as it will enable us to demonstrate the potential of our oral insulin capsule in a large clinical study. We look forward to completing the study and presenting the data collected,” Kidron said in a statement.
Established in 2006, Oramed is seeking to revolutionize the treatment of diabetes through its proprietary flagship product, ORMD-0801, an orally ingestible insulin capsule.
Earlier in June the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property granted Oramed a patent for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), an incretin hormone that stimulates the secretion of insulin from the pancreas. Exenatide, a GLP-1 analog, is currently marketed in injectable form only, and is indicated for treatment of type 2 diabetes.
Earlier this month Oramed announced it had sold $5.36 million of shares of common stock at $7.50 per share.
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