Chi­na’s cost ad­van­tage and po­si­tion as the world’s sec­ond-largest pre­scrip­tion drug mar­ket has fu­eled its red-hot CRO in­dus­try over the last few years. On Thurs­day, Shang­hai-based dMed Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal wrapped up a $100 mil­lion Se­ries C round, which it says will blaze the path to an IPO.

Found­ed in 2016 by Ling­shi Tan, Pfiz­er’s for­mer gen­er­al man­ag­er of Chi­na R&D, dMed boasts sites in ma­jor cities across Chi­na, the US, and one lo­ca­tion in Bel­gium. It hooked a $50 mil­lion Se­ries B just last year, and opened a US reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs of­fice in DC to help Chi­nese biotechs sub­mit US fil­ings and serve as a con­duit for US drug­mak­ers look­ing to out­source de­vel­op­ment to Chi­na.

“A key goal in the cur­rent round is to ex­pand our in­vestor base to in­clude long-term pub­lic mar­ket-fo­cused in­sti­tu­tions and strate­gic part­ners in or­der to pre­pare for a fu­ture IPO,” Tan said in a state­ment.

Fi­deli­ty Man­age­ment & Re­search led the Se­ries C, with a help­ing hand from new in­vestors Se­quoia Cap­i­tal Chi­na, Kaiser Foun­da­tion Hos­pi­tals and E Fund.

Chi­na’s CRO mar­ket is ex­pect­ed to hit $27.04 bil­lion in 2024, ex­pand­ing at a com­pound an­nu­al growth rate of 27.06%, ac­cord­ing to a Kon­cept An­a­lyt­ics re­port pub­lished ear­li­er this year. Sev­er­al fac­tors are con­tribut­ing to the growth, the re­port states, in­clud­ing in­creas­ing bi­o­log­ics sales, ris­ing geri­atric pop­u­la­tion, grow­ing in­vest­ment in the health­care sec­tor, an ac­cel­er­at­ing num­ber of IND fil­ings, in­clin­ing R&D ex­pen­di­tures and un­met need.

“Dur­ing pre­vi­ous years, the CRO in­dus­try has grown from lim­it­ed clin­i­cal tri­al ser­vices provider to a full-ser­vice in­dus­try char­ac­ter­ized by broad re­la­tion­ships with clients and ser­vice of­fer­ings that en­com­pass the en­tire drug de­vel­op­ment process,” the re­port reads.

In 2017, sweep­ing reg­u­la­to­ry re­forms more close­ly aligned Chi­na’s rules with those in the US and Eu­rope, re­sult­ing in an in­flux of ap­pli­ca­tions from Chi­nese biotechs to reg­is­ter drugs in the US, ac­cord­ing to dMed. Chi­na joined the In­ter­na­tion­al Coun­cil for Har­mon­i­sa­tion of Tech­ni­cal Re­quire­ments for Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for Hu­man Use (ICH), an or­ga­ni­za­tion that brings to­geth­er reg­u­la­tors of the bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try glob­al­ly to as­sess the sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal as­pects of drug de­vel­op­ment. IND fil­ings jumped from 11 in 2016 to 20 in 2017, with an­oth­er 38 in 2018 and the first quar­ter of this year, dMed an­nounced.

“Chi­na is vast­ly dif­fer­ent than two years ago. Gov­ern­ment re­forms and join­ing the ICH have helped clear the way for in­no­v­a­tive Chi­nese com­pa­nies to de­vel­op and launch cut­ting-edge ther­a­pies glob­al­ly,” Tan said last year, up­on an­nounc­ing the DC of­fice. “A key part of dMed’s mis­sion is to sup­port the glob­al­iza­tion of drug de­vel­op­ment and help build world-class clin­i­cal, reg­u­la­to­ry, bio­met­rics and phar­ma­covig­i­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ties in Chi­na.”

The firehose of biopharma news is gushing these days.

That’s why broader and deeper is the theme for 2021 at Endpoints. You can expect new coverage outside our core R&D focus, with deeper reporting in some key areas. When John Carroll and I launched Endpoints nearly five years ago, we were wading in waist-high waters. Now we’re a team of 25 full-time staffers (and growing) with plans to cover the flood of biopharma news, Endpoints-style.

About 15 months since closing a $28 million Series A, a San Diego protein-degradation upstart returned to the venture well Thursday with an extension of that round and some new hires, including one of the city’s best-connected biotech execs.

Plexium has bagged an additional $35 million in financing, the biotech said, money that will push undisclosed oncology and immuno-oncology programs into the clinic. In addition, longtime industry vet Mike Grey is jumping on as chairman of the board, and two others from Thursday’s leads — Adam Goulburn from Lux Capital and Rob Hopfner from Pivotal BioVentures — joined the board too.

As reports crop up that deliveries of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine are being unexpectedly cut, Italy wonders if it can take the vaccine developers to court, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

After its shipment for this week was cut by 29%, the Italian government consulted its attorney general about taking legal action, the WSJ reported. Pfizer and BioNTech had warned the EU and Canada last week that their allocations would be reduced as Pfizer upgrades its Belgium factory. What Italy says it doesn’t appreciate, though, is the short notice.

Seven years after the FDA first approved Esbriet, the blockbuster Roche IPF drug is getting an expedited review for a second indication.

On Thursday, the agency gave Esbriet priority review for unclassified interstitial lung diseases, or forms of pulmonary inflammation and scarring that don’t fit easily into the over 200 known types of ILD. The move comes 10 months after Esbriet received breakthrough designation and sets Roche up for a decision by May.