Who's The Foxconn Of Pharma? A Global Battle Spawns Two IPOs

Inside a factory in eastern China, vats of what might become some of the world’s newest and most sophisticated medicines are brewing.

The owner, Wuxi Biologics, is among a handful of companies worldwide vying to be the outsourcer of choice to drugmakers selling biologic drugs: therapies made from proteins or a combination of biological matter to treat illnesses such as cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Last year, six of the world’s ten best-selling drugs were biologics, including Johnson & Johnson’s arthritis drug Remicade and Sanofi’s Lantus for diabetes, both blockbuster medicines. Seen as a rapidly expanding market in the decades ahead, companies are now beginning to line up to mass produce these therapies for the drugmakers developing them.

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