The first Chinese recombinant human insulin Gansulin provider, Gan & Lee, landed on China’s A-share market, calling for more capital to support therapies for chronic disease.
A doctor is preparing insulin. Image credit: Matt Chesin/Unsplash
Gan & Lee Pharmaceutical, a Beijing-based insulin solution provider and injection provider, went public on the A-share board at the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It issued no more than 40.2 million shares at CNY 63.32 and opened at CNY 91.18 per share with a CNY 36.57 billion market valuation.
As planned, this IPO bankroll will support a networking construction project, registration for the US market, an insulin industrialization project, a biological information project, a chemical R&D center – and as an injection of working capital.
As early as 2001, Gan & Lee successfully developed the third-generation insulin product. Its three insulin products can fully cover market segments in various demands for long-term, middle-term and immediate efficiency. In 2020, NovoRapid, its third-generation insulin analog, was approved by the Chinese FDA and launched into the market.
The company is the first Chinese pharmaceutical actor to develop techniques to produce recombinant human insulin and industrialize this workflow for commercialization. It has made China one of the few countries in the world that owns this chemical industrialization technique.
So far, it has explored one insulin pipeline used for raw materials and two packaging sub-pipelines for small volume injections. With three brand-name insulin injections and three other specific injections as raw materials, this company boosted its revenue from CNY 2.37 billion in 2017 to CNY 2.9 billion in 2019 and net profits from CNY 1.08 billion to CNY 1.17 billion during the same period.
Diabetes is a universal and common chronic disease. According to China’s official government, there are over 116 million adults with diabetes and even more children. IMS data shows that third-generation insulin accounts for close to 80% of market share in the US and European markets. At the price advantage, the company can help reduce the financial burden for diabetes patients – it is a lifelong therapy process.
As of the end of 2019, this pharmaceutical had established a selling network of over 7,700 hospitals across China, including 2,400 triple-A level and above hospitals. Beyond China, it is shaping up for the global market, with a distribution web accessing to over 20 countries and regions worldwide. Now it is expecting to provide more innovative drugs to global medical institutes based on the second drug production base in Shangdong province.
One noteworthy thing is that Gan & Lee Pharmaceutical is the fifth healthcare company, in Qiming VC’s portfolios, to go public this year after Roborock Tech (688169:SH), Schrödinger (SDGR:NASDAQ), Sanyou Medical (688085:SH) and SinoCell Tech (688520:SH).