(January 12, 2025)
The Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SAPA) successfully hosted the SAPA Investment Forum during the 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, California, on January 12, 2025. SAPA invited executives, investors, business development professionals and legal professionals from the biopharmaceutical industry to share and discuss recent trends in financing and business development. The event featured twelve speakers across two panel discussions and attracted over three hundred attendees.
Dr. Jack Wu, Immediate Past President of SAPA and Senior Director of BD Search & Evaluation at Takeda Oncology, delivered the opening remarks, extending a warm welcome to all attendees. Dr. Wu introduced SAPA as one of the largest and most influential Chinese-American pharmaceutical organizations in the United States, with six chapters in the U.S. and one in China. He encouraged attendees to join SAPA and participate in the 2025 SAPA events. Representing the venue sponsor, Seamus Jiang, US/China Cross-Border Deals leader and Managing Director at PwC US, also welcomed the attendees and expressed gratitude for the support of such an excellent event during JPM Week.
Panel Discussions
Pan Pan, PhD, MBA, Head of Business Development at OncoC4, moderated the first panel discussion, themed "Biotech’s Global Expansion & Cross-Border Opportunities." Panelists engaged in a vibrant discussion about their most impressive deal cases. Jesus Baena, MS, BD&L Transactions Oncology Director at Novartis, highlighted the recent deal between Novartis and Chengdu Baiyu. Mr. Baena emphasized the importance of engaging early, maintaining transparency, embracing the long process, and being open to different models when finding business partners. Mingjiu Chen, PhD, Founder, President & CEO at Biosion, shared insights on the complexities of Biosion’s recent deal with Aclaris, illustrating how it evolved from exploring a NewCo opportunity to collaborating with a public company, and underscoring the value of data-driven decisions aligned with future market trends. Jasmine Cui, PhD, Co-founder, Chairperson & CEO at InnoCare Pharma, emphasized the importance of business partners in delivering promising treatments to patients. Seamus Jiang advised companies to honestly assess their best partners, stressing that while the NewCo model is trending, licensing remains a critical approach for simplifying transactions with major pharmaceutical companies. Drawing on Roche's recent acquisition of Poseida, Huan Xie, Senior Director of Business Development at Astellas Pharma highlighted the importance of differentiation, speed, and maintaining open communication with partners to align on strategic plans, as well as the importance of the US market to Astellas. Jordan Zhu, MS, MBA, VP, Head of Global Business Development at Leads Biolabs, discussed their recent collaboration with Oblenio Bio, reflecting on the challenge of aligning visions and values among stakeholders while addressing emerging industry trends.
Following the insightful first panel, Xiaodong Chen, PhD, Senior Director of CMC at Roivant Sciences and SAPA President (2021–2022) moderated the second panel discussion, with the theme "Navigating the new revolution and future impacts." Panelists continued to explore the reasons behind the recent rise of NewCo, its differences from BD as well as future prospects. Cyber Cao, MS, Managing Director of HSG, noted that NewCo is not a new concept. Its recent popularity stems from U.S. capital market's urgent need for high-quality assets capable of quick IPOs in recent years and the repeated success of BD deals by Chinese pharmaceutical pioneers, which has bolstered confidence in overseas capital markets. Wansheng Jerry Liu, PhD, JD, Partner & Chair of the China Practice Group at Fox Rothschild LLP and SAPA President (2019–2020), provided legal perspectives on the NewCo model, compared it with other traditional models of cross-border transactions. He thinks that NewCo can be viewed as a combination of several traditional models, which may be considered as an inevitable product of factors including China's increasingly enhanced R&D capabilities in pharma and biotech, the contraction of the domestic financing environment, and geopolitical uncertainties in the past couple of years. discussed the legal benefits of NewCo. He emphasized that its ease of operation ensures certain protections for both parties, particularly in the face of geopolitical uncertainties. Salar Roshan, MBA, MS, Operating Partner at 3E BioVentures Capital, highlighted that amid recent capital market contractions, when BD becomes unfeasible, NewCo offers a pathway to secure funding for advancing R&D efforts. Liang Schweizer, PhD, Founder, Chairperson, and CEO of HiFiBio Therapeutics, shared her own experience of proposing joint ventures with university professors to facilitate translational research, aligning with the fundamental logic of NewCo: driving efficient progress toward a shared vision. Yusheng Wu, PhD, Chairman of the Board and CEO of TYK Medicines, compared NewCo with BD, pointing out that while BD typically transfers a single asset, NewCo allows for the simultaneous operation of a portfolio of assets, creating a win-win situation for both parties. Nicole Zhang, Director of Healthcare Investment Banking at Citigroup New York, remarked that the market's valuation of NewCo is generally fair. However, some assets are priced above their intrinsic value, while others are undervalued, depending on the specific circumstances.
After two engaging panel discussions, Han Zhang, PhD, BD and Licensing Manager, Biocytogen hosted the pitching session of this forum. Three projects participated in this year’s investment forum pitch session.
First, Yusheng Wu, PhD, Chairman of the Board, CEO of TYK Medicines, presented the latest clinical results of their small molecule drugs for cancer treatment and associated pipeline. Next, Xiaoguang Wen, PhD, Founder, Chairman, CEO of Overseas Pharmaceuticals shared the breakthroughs in formulation development services and oral controlled-release new drug development. Lastly, Di Zhu, PhD, Fuzhu Mingsheng Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. showcased the company’s outstanding results in targeting the Wnt signaling pathway to treat inflammatory bowel disease.
Following these insightful pitches and discussions, Xiaodong Chen, organizer of the event closed the session and thanked all speakers and attendees for attending the event. He also mentioned that there will be similar event to be held in New York during summer time (SAPA Investment Forum and Roadshow). Later on, speakers and attendees joined a cocktail reception sponsored by Fox Rothschild LLP, where they exchanged perspectives and experiences in the healthcare industry and explored potential future collaborations. As the beautiful Californian winter evening unfolded, all participants departed the venue with optimism and anticipation for the year ahead.
Networking and Fun moments:
About SAPA
The Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SAPA) was established in 1993 and is headquartered in the pharmaceutical hub of New Jersey, USA. Since its inception, SAPA has grown rapidly, with seven chapters across the U.S. and China and more than 6,000 members, making it one of the most active national Chinese-American professional associations in the U.S. SAPA members primarily work at mid- and large-sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies, with expertise spanning every stage of pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing.
Supported by its extensive membership and a wealth of senior scientific talent, SAPA has consistently facilitated deep exchanges in traditional pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and generics. As a U.S.-registered non-profit organization, SAPA has long benefited from the generous support and sponsorship of American and multinational corporations. SAPA remains committed to providing a broad platform for scientific discussions, career development, knowledge training, business collaborations, and entrepreneurial investment within the pharmaceutical industry.
Commentaires