Billion-dollar biosim maker mulls $500M Hong Kong IPO
A Chinese biosimilar maker valued at $1.5 billion might be the first to list its stock on Hong Kong’s exchange under new rules allowing startups and biotechs to go public.
The company, called Shanghai Henlius Biotech, could do an IPO raising $500 million as early as the second half of this year, according to unnamed sources interviewed by Bloomberg.
A listing like this could be a first for Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Until recently, Hong Kong did not allow pre-revenue and pre-profit companies to list, as they were a perceived risk to investors. But this cut out the bulk of biotechs operating in the red while developing drugs. The strict rules led Chinese biotech companies like BeiGene to raise capital in the US. On the Nasdaq, BeiGene’s stock has grown nearly 310% over the past two years, bringing its market cap up to $6.3 billion. Not bad for a company with barely any revenue, and none from product sales as of their latest 10-K.
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