Despite rhetoric, Chinese investors eye US biotech
Despite tough talk by President-elect Donald Trump about a possible trade war, Chinese investors are hungry for US biotech and they have money to spend.
In the latest purchase following a record 2016 for Chinese healthcare takeovers, Nanjing-based Sanpower Group Co said it would buy a cancer treatment business from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc for $820 million.
Sanpower's interest is far from unique. Chinese venture capitalists and individual investors are looking as well. Last Sunday morning, in a hotel ballroom a short hop from the San Francisco airport, about 250 jet-lagged potential dealmakers and American biotech executives could be heard chatting in Mandarin and English. They were attending a get-together hosted by boutique investment firm CTIC Capital, hoping to forge alliances before the start of the industry's biggest annual gathering, the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, at the Westin St Francis in San Francisco.
