Quick Take: Chinese Biotech Firm Buys U.S. Clinical Researcher

Chinese biotechnology and medical-device developer WuXi AppTec Group has acquired U.S.-based clinical research company ResearchPoint Global, as the one-time New York-listed company seeks to fortify its overseas network.

The size of the deal was not disclosed, but the Chinese company said in a statement on Wednesday that it will help “expand WuXi’s clinical research capabilities in the United States and around the world.”

The deal will combine ResearchPoint with WuXi’s existing China-based clinical development service team, the statement said.

“This business combination lays the groundwork for the creation of an integrated global clinical service organization with global expertise and a global network,” WuXi Chairman and CEO Li Ge said.

WuXi is a well-known pharmaceutical company that listed in New York in 2007 via the shell company WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. It delisted in 2015 and relisted its subsidiaries WuXi Biologics (Cayman) Inc. and Shanghai SynTheAll Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. in Hong Kong and on the over-the-counter New Third Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange respectively.

In July, WuXi filed a prospectus to list a third company, WuXi Apptec Co. Ltd., in Shanghai, completing WuXi’s listing plan.

Li had said earlier that the company left the U.S. stock market because investors there cared too much about short-term results, making it difficult to make large strategic investments.

Since then, WuXi has kept up its pace of overseas investments. In January, it formed an alliance with biopharmaceutical giant AbbVie Inc. and life-sciences startup Genomics Medicine Ireland Ltd. to conduct population genomics research. In November, it created a strategic biologics development and manufacturing partnership with Australia’s Prima Biomed Ltd.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com)