Uni­corn Mod­er­na joins line­up to list on Hong Kong's ex­change; Proces­sa li­cens­es com­pound from Con­cert

→ Ru­mors are fly­ing that biotech’s biggest uni­corn, Mod­er­na, which was re­cent­ly val­ued at $7 bil­lion, is plan­ning a dual IPO list­ing on both the Nas­daq and the Hong Kong ex­changes. That’s ac­cord­ing to a Wall Street Jour­nal re­port, which cites un­named sources fa­mil­iar with the com­pa­ny’s plans. The list­ing, they say, could be as ear­ly as next year. Mod­er­na would be one of sev­er­al biotechs lin­ing up to list on Hong Kong’s ex­change, which just re­cent­ly an­nounced a rule change that would al­low life sci­ence star­tups to list. An­nounced in De­cem­ber (and tak­ing ef­fect this year), the rule change will al­low com­pa­nies that haven’t earned rev­enue or prof­it to ap­ply for IPOs in Hong Kong — as long as they’re val­ued at HK$1.5 bil­lion (US$192 mil­lion). The com­pa­nies must meet some cri­te­ria first, like be­ing at least 2 years old and hav­ing some patents. An­oth­er biotech uni­corn, Grail, which has raised over $1 bil­lion and whose back­ers in­clude GV (for­mer­ly Google Ven­tures) and Bill Gates, is al­so gear­ing up for a $500 mil­lion Hong Kong list­ing. The rules for the Hong Kong ex­change are ex­pect­ed to be fi­nal­ized in late April. When the gate lifts, we ex­pect to see lots of biotechs trot­ting through.

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