The Car­lyle Group is in­vest­ing $260 mil­lion to grab a mi­nor­i­ty stake in Shen­zhen Salu­bris Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, a sto­ried gener­ic mak­er that’s in­creas­ing­ly in­vest­ing in new drug R&D.

The cash is good for a 5% stake in Shen­zhen-list­ed Salu­bris, giv­ing the pri­vate eq­ui­ty play­er ac­cess to a port­fo­lio of treat­ments and de­vices in the car­dio­vas­cu­lar, on­col­o­gy and an­ti-in­fec­tive ar­eas. As the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment’s re­im­burse­ment re­forms spur con­sol­i­da­tion in the gener­ic drug mar­ket, some play­ers are poised to gain mar­ket share, Car­lyle not­ed in a state­ment.

While Salu­bris’ rev­enues have his­tor­i­cal­ly been dri­ven by sales of main­stays like the blood thin­ners clopi­do­grel and bi­valirudin, the com­pa­ny’s been up­ping its bet on ear­ly-stage drug de­vel­op­ment.

That means in-li­cens­ing enar­o­du­s­tat, a hy­pox­ia-in­ducible fac­tor pro­lyl hy­drox­y­lase (HIF-PH) in­hibitor, from Japan’s JT; tak­ing the lead on back­ing Virac­ta, a biotech work­ing on vi­ral-as­so­ci­at­ed can­cers; as well as push­ing through in­ter­nal­ly dis­cov­ered can­di­dates, in­clud­ing an an­giotensin re­cep­tor-NEP in­hibitor and a re­com­bi­nant fu­sion pro­tein for heart fail­ure.

Lever­ag­ing Car­lyle’s ex­per­tise, net­work and re­sources, Salu­bris says it is look­ing to ex­pand both do­mes­ti­cal­ly and glob­al­ly — with plans to do more tri­als over­seas. M&A is al­so on the ta­ble.

For Car­lyle, it’s a chance to tap in­to “one of the strongest fran­chis­es” in the car­dio- and cere­brovas­cu­lar (CCV) seg­ment in Chi­na, said Ling Yang, a man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Car­lyle Asia Buy­out ad­vi­so­ry team. Salu­bris is now the sec­ond largest do­mes­tic com­pa­ny in the space, ac­cord­ing to Car­lyle.

The firm boasts of long-stand­ing op­er­a­tions in Chi­na built over 20 years, in­vest­ing more than $9.5 bil­lion worth of eq­ui­ty as it en­tered the sec­ond half of 2020.

More promi­nent in its Chi­na deal streak are the in­vest­ments in the pep­tide API man­u­fac­tur­er Am­bio and the clin­i­cal lab­o­ra­to­ry Adi­con, among oth­er moves in medtech and health­care.

Glob­al­ly, Car­lyle — which has re­cruit­ed re­tired Pfiz­er chief Ian Read to be a deal scout — has been known for its role as a ma­jor in­vestor in con­tract re­search or de­vel­op­ment/man­u­fac­tur­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions, in­clud­ing PPD and AM­RI. Most re­cent­ly it struck a deal with In­dia’s Pi­ra­mal Phar­ma to pur­chase around 20% of its shares for $490 mil­lion.

The Endpoints News team is continuing to track IPO filings for 2021, and we’ve designed a new tracker page for the effort.

Check it out here: Biopharma IPOs 2021 from Endpoints News

You’ll be able to find all the biotechs that have filed and priced so far this year, sortable by quarter and listed by newest first. As of the time of publishing on Feb. 25, there have already been 16 biotechs debuting on Nasdaq so far this year, with an additional four having filed their S-1 paperwork.

Roche and Genentech have committed $53 million to back a 10-year quest aimed at going back to the drawing board to use new technology and fresh scientific insights to generate a pipeline of drugs for neurological diseases.

Researchers from both Roche and its big South San Francisco hub — mixing teams from gRED and pRED this time — will mix it up with the scientists drawn together for the Weill Neurohub — formed in 2019 as a joint research partnership involving UCSF, Berkeley and the University of Washington — in an exploration of the field to develop new therapies for some of the toughest diseases in drug R&D: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and autism.

The US could have a third authorized Covid-19 vaccine within hours.

The FDA’s advisory committee voted unanimously — 22-0 — to recommend the agency issue an emergency use authorization for J&J’s vaccine. If they follow the precedent of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine,  the FDA will likely authorize the vaccine by Saturday, immediately adding a few million doses to the US supply and adding a 100 million by June. An authorization would give the world its first single-dose vaccine, a major weapon in the effort to vaccinate the world and bring the virus to heel, particularly in rural and developing areas.