ChinaBio Today -- At ChinaBio® Today last week, we concluded our series on the “State of China Life Science” with a look at 2008 activity in IPOs and M&A (see story). In 2008, the IPO market for China life science companies was virtually moribund, dropping 94% in dollar volume, though M&A remained surprisingly vibrant, rising almost 20%. The M&A numbers are, however, misleading, because so much of the activity took place in 2008’s Q1 – before the full force of the economic crisis was felt. Q2 (also before the crisis) fell 77%, a kind of canary in the M&A mine. The second half was on track to post results almost 50% lower than the previous year. In previous installments of the series, we published an overview of the sector, original research on life science patents, and 2008 venture capital investments in life science.
