BeiGene, once a target for short sellers, attracts jumbo deal from Amgen, hedge fund eyeing China’s red-hot pharmaceutical sector
- Chinese cancer drugs developer once accused of inflating sales collects US$2.1 billion in new stock placement as investors latch onto world’s second-largest market
- Pharmaceutical and biotech stocks have gained 31 per cent this year in Hong Kong, versus a slide in the Hang Seng Index
No example is more surprising than the windfall that has come the way of cancer drugs developer BeiGene, a company once accused by a short seller of inflating its sales.
The stock placement is the fourth round of capital infusion to fund its research and development since the Beijing-based firm went public on Nasdaq in 2016, suggesting the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical market is indispensable, despite two years of US-China trade conflict and heightened geopolitical risks.
“To have investors like [Amgen] come back for more in such a big way is the strongest kind of [fundraising] a company can do,” said Brad Loncar, chief executive of Kansas-based investment firm Loncar Investments. “Today’s backing is commensurate with [Beigene’s] global ambition.”
