Shandong Sinobioway Biomedicine (SZE: 002581) topped management’s $402 million bid to privatize China vaccine maker Sinovac (NSDQ: SVA) with a $459 million offer of its own (see story). Sinobioway also criticized Sinovac’s board for its lack of transparency. Eighteen months ago, when the Sinovac privatization saga started, Sinobioway offered $7 per share for Sinovac, improving on management’s earlier $6.18 offer. Sinovac’s board responded by instituting a poison pill and going silent on the proceedings. This week, Sinovac announced it had accepted management’s newly raised $7 bid — a bid that had never been publicly announced. Now, Sinobioway is offering $8 per share or $459 million. Sinovac is a Beijing vaccine company with legacy vaccines for hepatitis A and B. 

Hong Kong’s AGIC Capital will acquire Ritedose Corporation of South Carolina for somewhere between $600 million and $800 million, according to media reports (see story). Ritedose offers blow-fill-seal services for liquid pharmaceuticals along with formulation services. China pharmaceutical company Humanwell Health will take a minority position in Ritedose. AGIC Capital, a $1 billion fund co-founded in 2015 by well-known banker Henry Cai, said it will help Ritedose expand to China and Asian markets. 

Last week, Guangzhou broke ground on a major new $800 million biopharma park (see story). General Electric (NYSE: GE) is partnering with the Guangzhou Development District in the southern China city to build the park, whose first stage will comprise at least 350,000 square meters. GE supplies prefabricated bioprocessing facilities (KUBio) that manufacture biologic drugs, and the company’s China headquarters, for all of its various divisions, are in Guangzhou. It is the first time GE has built a biopharma park in Asia. 

CSPC Pharmaceutical (HK: 1093) of Hong Kong acquired global rights to two pre-clinical drug candidates developed by researchers at University of Texas institutions (see story). The company paid $4.5 million upfront and could pay as much as $114 million in milestones for the rights. A CSPC subsidiary, AlaMab Therapeutics, will be responsible for developing the mAb candidates, which are derived from proteins called connexins and play a role in neuronal and skeletal tissue disease. AlaMab will work to gain approvals of the molecules in the US and China.