Chinese firms out in force at world’s biggest health care meet, even as country’s tech companies cool on US
- About 38 Chinese privately-owned and listed companies are attending the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco
- Attendance contrasts with 20 per cent decline in number of Chinese firms at annual CES consumer electronics trade show
More Chinese companies have flocked to this year’s JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, the industry’s largest investment symposium in the world, defying a steep slump in stock valuations in the sector and wider economic and political worries.
About 38 Chinese privately-owned and listed companies – an increase of 22.6 per cent over last year – have made presentations and attended one-on-one meetings at the event, which runs Monday through Thursday this week in San Francisco. Thirty-one firms attended the event last year, and 21 in 2017.
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These companies include innovative drug developers, generic drug manufacturers, medical devices companies, online pharmacy and health care services platform operators, as well as outsourced manufacturing and clinical trial services providers. They are eager to share their investment stories and business updates with new and existing investors, as well as potential technology licensing and marketing partners from the United States and elsewhere.
The rising numbers also vindicate a move by Hong Kong to allow listings by pre-revenue biotechnology companies in April last year. Five such firms have listed on the mainboard of its stock exchange so far.
“China’s drug development has witnessed revolutionary and globally rare changes in the three years to 2018, resulting in over 40 new drugs being approved last year alone, compared to four in the 50 years to 2008,” Song Ruilin, president of the China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association, told a panel discussion on Wednesday.
Frank Zhang Fangliang, chairman of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) cancer therapies developer Genscript Biotech, told a panel: “Nowadays, the regulatory environment is almost the same as in the US … in the CAR-T area, China ranks just behind the US and is ahead of Europe and Japan in terms of the number of clinical trials. In some new segments, Chinese firms can be just as innovative as US firms.”