Week In Review: Deals Dominate China Biopharma News

Luye Pharma is one of several companies vying to acquire Ethypharm, a privately held French drugmaker, in a $800-$900 million bidding war; Wuhan Humanwell and PuraCap bought Epic Pharma, a New York state generic drug manufacturer, for $550 million; Zhongmei Healthcare, a group of private China hospitals, plans to stage a $150 million IPO in Hong Kong during Q2; Fujian Thai Hot Investment paid $102.5 million for a majority stake in Alliance HealthCare, a US operator of diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy centers; Yantai Dongcheng Biochemicals paid $70 million to acquire the China assets of Global Medical Solutions, a US company that makes nuclear medicine and imaging contrast products; AliHealth, a subsidiary of China e-commerce giant Alibaba, will invest $35 million for a 25% stake in China Resources Wandong Medical Equipment's medical imaging unit; Affymetrix accepted a takeover bid from Thermo Fisher Scientific, rather than a higher offer backed by China's SummitView Capital; Beijing's Sinovac Biotech adopted a poison pill defense as it contemplates a privatization offer; CITIC Private Equity made a strategic investment of unspecified size in Beijing New Journey Cancer Hospital; and GlaxoSmithKline will spend $29 million to create a new R&D institute in Beijing specializing in China's infectious disease and antibiotic resistance public health issues.