The following excerpt was taken from STAT News—continue reading here.
U.S. venture capital firms are no longer waiting for Chinese biotech assets to surface before investing in them — they’re moving upstream, embedding themselves inside labs and courting scientists before they publish their research. In some cases, they’re vying against Chinese VCs urging scientists not to publish at all.
As multinational drugmakers flood China in search of deals, competition is intensifying, and valuations are rising sharply, according to VCs and other observers. That pressure is forcing venture capital firms to move earlier — teaming up with local partners to tap scientific discoveries before they reach the market.
Marc Appel, managing partner of Pacific Bridge NY, a VC firm that is actively doing deals in China, said a small number of global firms are looking at earlier-stage assets at universities there.
“We think there is a lot of opportunity here as the quality of scientific innovation in Chinese universities continues to get better and better,” Appel said.
“More importantly,” he added, “those universities, funded by the government, have less commercial focus and more incentives to do basic research, which can produce [more] novel technologies than privately funded institutions in the U.S.”