Page 67 - Forbes - Asia (July - August 2018)

“American doctors enjoy meeting new [salespeople], but Chinese doctors prefer a familiar face,” says Lou, head of 3SBio.
a familiar face, someone that they know Stock Exchange in 2015 with an IPO-day share; and a biopharma irm in Shanghai,
wouldn’t screw them up,” says Lou. market capitalization of $2.2 billion, nearly now called Sunshine Guojian, whose
he company was renamed 3SBio and seven times its delisting valuation. autoimmune drug Yisaipu has a 60% share
went public on Nasdaq in 2007 as the Today that market cap is $5.7 billion, in the country. (It also licensed the China
exchange’s irst Chinese biopharma irm. It and Lou and his wife own nearly a quarter. rights to two diabetes drugs from pharma
met a lukewarm capital market, however. He still spends 30% of his time getting giants AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly.)
he company’s revenue and proit grew acquainted with research trends and the rest “Yisaipu was the irst [of its kind] on
some 30% annually, but its stock price kept on managerial duties, traveling from 3SBio’s the market, ahead of the then Wyeth [now
dropping. “We were too small for a phar- headquarters in Liaoning Province to four Pizer] contender product by multiple
maceutical irm,” he recalls. “All the big long other production or lab sites in Shanghai, years,” says Helen Chen, head of China and
funds were looking at companies with $500 Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Como, Italy. Asia life sciences at U.S. consulting irm
SHAWN KOH FOR FORBES $60 million. Nobody cared about what we spree. It acquired Italian contract drug- competitively priced to the multinational
million revenue or above, but we only made
Since 2014 3SBio has been on a buying
LEK in its Shanghai oice. “It was and is
corporations’ products as well as other
were doing.” he company was taken pri-
maker Sirton; a lower-end EPO drugmaker
domestic follow-ons.”
vate in 2013 and relisted on the Hong Kong
in Shenzhen with an 8% China market
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